


rewriting tragedies

by agrestenoir



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Gen, Humor, Kwami Swap, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 21,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrestenoir/pseuds/agrestenoir
Summary: Wherein I attempt to solve the tragedies of Miraculous through love, humor, tears, and everything in-between.A drabble collection.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Chloé Bourgeois/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 19
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wherein I told myself I would never have a drabble collection but enough people on Tumblr begged me anyway.

> **Prompt** : Gabriel’s butterfly garden is infested with ladybugs

The glow of the overhead lighting glints across his glasses as he stares into the garden. Feather-light, ivory wings flutter about the space, dipping and diving between the looped ivy and petals of the akuma plants. Behind him, Nathalie stands as prim and proper as ever, but the occasional snort slips through her stoic façade every so often. 

Gabriel pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation as he carefully cradles an akuma plant with the other. A ladybug crawls off the twitching leaves and onto the back of his palm. 

He asks Nathalie, “How did this happen?”

A muffled laugh is his only response.

Shaking his head, Gabriel tries to fathom how in the world a ladybug infestation invaded his butterfly garden. For all intents and purposes, today had been a good day. His akuma had terrorized Paris for a solid nine hours (which always puts him in a good mood), he had fired three designers at his firm (the sweet smell of crushed dreams in the morning, _ahhh_ ), and he even had time to tend to his garden! Alas, he has found random ladybugs of all things crawling about the akuma plants, and he’s having flashbacks of his constant defeat every time he looks at them.

It’s _truly_ awful.

“How did they even get in here?” he asks again, to no one in particular. Nathalie is nearly inconsolable at this point. 

It just doesn’t make sense! Artificial sunlight helps the akuma plants grow, there’s even it’s own filtered air system, and the dirt is imported from Argentina! There’s no possible way for ladybugs to infiltrate his lair, and yet here they stand, with a million little critters to crush his finely-trimmed dreams.

“Nathalie,” he finally says, decision made up. He will not stand for this mockery. It’s time to start anew. “Get me the flamethrower.”

It’s going to be a long night.


	2. Chapter 2

> **Prompt** : Felix Graham de Vanily reacting to Adrien’s scavenger hunt in Backwarder for the constipation meds

The phone call comes on a Thursday morning when Felix Graham de Vanily is barely awake, blinking blearily at the ceiling as his cell buzzes angrily on his nightstand. He glances at the clock, the red numbers showing way too early in the morning, and he rolls over to reach for his phone without looking at the caller.

“Hello?” he grumbles, voice hoarse from sleep.

“Felix?” It’s his cousin Adrien’s voice, too bright and chirper for this time of the day, and he almost hangs up then and there. “Are you free to talk?”

“What the hell do you want?” Felix props himself on his elbows, glaring at his wall as if it were his cousin. “You never call me.”

“Well I’m in your neck of the woods this weekend,” comes that sunny voice, and Felix wants to strangle him. “Listen, one of my best friends desperately needs something from the pharmacy, and I’ve looked everywhere but I can’t find it, and I need to find it before I head back to Paris. It’s of the utmost importance. A girl’s life could depend on it.”

His earnestness makes Felix want to suffocate _himself_ with one of his bed pillows. He wonders if it’s too late to hang up. “What is it?” he finally gives in because Adrien still thinks the world of him, and it may come in handy someday to hang onto that sincerity.

“Constipation medication.”

The world could have ended, there could have been snow in the middle of summer, he could have woken up to find Gabriel Agreste was actually his father—and still nothing could have been more startling than Adrien’s answer. There’s a beat of silence, and then Felix burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter. 

Adrien’s frown can be heard from the other end of the line. “Bowel movements aren’t a joke, Felix.”

And _that_ … God, Felix can’t handle it. 

He finally hangs up on his cousin and continues to laugh as the sun comes up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Alya and Adrien hanging out when Marinette and Nino are late showing up

> **Prompt** : Alya and Adrien hanging out when Marinette and Nino are late showing up

The Paris morning is a thing of beauty, Adrien decides, as he leans back on the cement ledge he’s currently sitting on while he and Alya wait for Nino and Marinette to arrive. The Tardy Two, as Alya loves to call them, are late again for perhaps the third time this week (he stops counting once he realized the difference between coincidence and habit), so it’s the first time in a long while the latter two are enjoying some quality time together.

“Objectively,” Alya begins, the sun catching the faint blonde highlights in her dark hair as she turns to face him. She’s sitting against the ledge beneath him, head between his legs as she scrolls through her phone. “Who’s hotter in person: Cindy Bruna or Sigrid Agren?”

The names of two famous French models makes Adrien snort and shake his head. “Just because my dad’s a famous designer doesn’t mean I know famous models.”

Alya levels him with a disbelieving stare over the rim of her glasses. “But you’re a model.”

“Commercially,” he says with a laugh, closing his eyes and soaking up the warmth of the sky. “I don’t really interact with runway or editorial people. Fashion is really not my thing, you know.” 

“You will once you and Marinette get married,” she mumbles under her breath, turning back to her phone.

Adrien squawks in alarm. “What do you mean? Marinette and I aren’t getting married!” For God’s sakes, he thinks, cheeks burning something awful, they aren’t even dating yet—which hopefully won’t be the case for much longer.

Alya simply ignores him. “You’re gonna have a summer wedding, and you’ll be the one in white because Marinette has a thing for bold statements, and it’ll be beautiful, and I’m going to be your maid of honor, and— _hey_!” Her protest is garbled as he slams his hand over her mouth when Nino and Marinette stroll up to them.

Nino opens his mouth to say something, but Adrien just shakes his head.

“Please,” he begs. “Just don’t ask.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Chloe breaks her ankle, and Marinette is there to help her cranky girlfriend

> **Prompt:** Chloe breaks her ankle, and Marinette is there to help her cranky girlfriend

“It’s too short,” Chloe tells her as Marinette adjusts the height of the crutches for the third time. This time, she doesn’t even make a move to take them from her girlfriend, simply flipping through the magazine in her lap.

Marinette takes a deep breath as she buries pale hands in her dark locks, brushing her bangs back in exasperation. If she thought the trip from the emergency room was difficult after her girlfriend broke her ankle post-akuma battle, then actually dealing with the injury is nearly impossible for one Chloe Bourgeois. Getting her used to her boot was unfathomable because all she did was complain about itchiness and sweat, and the crutches might soon become a murder weapon if she didn’t even try to walk with them. 

“For the last time,” Marinette tells her, trying to be the supportive girlfriend. “You are not 5’8”, not even on your good days, so your crutches will not work at that height.”

Chloe’s cheeks burn a bright pink at her answer. “I’m clearly 5’8”. I went to the doctor and everything.”

“Being measured with inserts doesn’t count,” Marinette says tiredly. She sets the crutches down against the wall and sits on the arm of the chair that Chloe has claimed, sliding a hand down her girlfriend’s back and rubbing it soothingly.

“I don’t like to be helpless,” Chloe finally confesses softly.

“Needing help for this stuff doesn’t mean you’re weak,” Marinette says, brushing back her blonde fringe to meet her blue eyes. “It just means you’re both strong enough to ask and accept it.”

Chloe makes the move to say something, but Marinette shuts her up with a quick kiss to her cheek, startling the blonde to speechlessness.

“Just shut up and use the crutches,” Marinette whispers against her temple. “Or I’m gonna make Adrien carry you around school, and then you really will be helpless.”

Chloe starts laughing, shoulders shaking, and Marinette decides that she’ll accept this.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Kwami swap Ladrien + cat tendencies

> **Prompt:** Kwami swap Ladrien + cat tendencies

It’s late, the Paris hanging low on the horizon as midnight trickles past. Adrien is sitting in the middle of his bed, Lady Noire settled beside him as they watch a movie on his tablet. It’s a habit they’ve quickly developed in their short friendship, and now it’s every Friday evening that finds them cuddled close in the Agreste mansion when Gabriel turns in for the night and Nathalie has taken her leave. 

“Comfortable?” Adrien teases as Lady Noire hunkers closer, burying her face between two of his pillows. Her only response is a soft sigh, exhaustion lingering on her bones after a long week, and Adrien feels his heart ache something fierce when he realizes that he’s the one she chooses to relax with at the end of the day.

With a shaky hand, he runs a hand through her long, dark hair, unraveled from her braid long ago. After a few passes, Lady Noire seems to nuzzle the side of his torso, and her chest suddenly vibrates, a low, loud purr echoing in the space between them—startling them both. 

It’s not the first time he’s played with her hair, but it is the first time he gets such a response. Adrien sits up straighter, staring at Lady Noire who blushes a deep pink, _and oh my god it’s so cute, someone help._

“Sorry,” Lady Noire says softly. “Cat stuff. Comes with the territory.”

Adrien just laughs. “Don’t worry about it. I get it, trust me.” He understands more than anyone possibly could. 

Lady Noire smiles, her bright eyes sparkling, and she lays back down on the bed. Adrien nudges his hand forward slightly, twisting a coil of her hair around his fingers, and she just seems to collapse in at his touch. Another purr reverberates between them, and Adrien chuckles before laying down beside her to finish the movie.

They both sleep soundly that night for the first time in a long while.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Playful alyanette

> **Prompt** : Playful alyanette

“What do you think of this lipstick?” Marinette asks one Saturday afternoon as she and her girlfriend lounge in the living room of their shared apartment in downtown Paris. 

Alya simply tilts her head from her position on the sofa, staring at Marinette who currently has neon purple lipstick smeared across her lips. Surprisingly, it is her color, the certain shade of purple blending in perfectly with her dark hair and bright, blue eyes, but it’s not a color Alya would ever be caught dead near in public. 

“If you wear that outside this house, I’m breaking up with you,” Alya tells her, but her words don’t invoke the fear she was looking for in Marinette.

Instead, her girlfriend’s eyes glint fiercely, like a forest catching fire, and she raises the lipstick in a threatening manner. “Do you want to try it?” she asks Alya, coming closer to the brunette. 

Fear flashes across Alya’s face, quick and explosive like a bullet. “Oh no, you don’t!” Her muscles twitch, bunching up as she prepares to roll off the couch and run to the safety and sanctuary of the bedroom. 

Marinette is faster. 

She jumps up from her chair and leaps across the room in a flying tackle, catching Alya’s legs and pinning her down easily. In her ten years as Ladybug, she’s more than prepared to subdue her girlfriend, and soon she’s straddling her hips with Alya’s wrists caught in her hands and pinned above her. The lipstick has long been ditched in the struggle, so Alya thinks she’s in the clear.

But then Marinette is leaning forward, neon purple lips catching Alya’s in a messy kiss, before moving on to pepper purple kisses along her jawline and up towards her temple, across her forehead, down her nose— _ **all over her.**_

“What the fuck?” Alya asks through her laughter. 

“Oh shut up,” Marinette teases and presses a final kiss to Alya’s lips. “Admit it, you love it.”

“I love you,” Alya says, and before Marinette can celebrate in her victory. “But seriously, I hate that lipstick, and it has to go, or I’m breaking up with you.”

Marinette pouts, the lipstick smeared across her face now. It just makes Alya laugh harder.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: platonic marichat cuddles

> **Prompt:** platonic marichat cuddles

“It’s pretty late,” Marinette muses as she gazes out over Paris, the moon reflected in her blue eyes. She nestles down into her pink lounge chair, looks up at the night sky, and tries to make constellations out of the barely-there stars in the light-polluted city.

Chat Noir stirs in her lap, laid out beside her, but he doesn’t make a move to get up and leave. Instead, he chooses to hunker down further and nuzzles his face into the crook of her neck, warm breath puffing against her skin, drawing goosebumps out amidst the cool, gentle breeze on the autumn evening.

“I should probably go,” he tells her though but chooses to stay as still as possible. It’s clear to her that he doesn’t want to leave—back to whatever home he hides from, whatever guardian stifles him to the point of suffocation, the place he spends all his time trying to leave. 

A pause, and then Marinette is wrapping her arms tightly around her friend to pull him closer. She isn’t sure what he refuses to go back to, but she won’t send him away. For all the time that they’ve spent together, and the secrets they won’t touch, it’d be downright cruel to request him to leave now.

“You can stay the night,” she says. “If you want, I mean.”

He takes a while to respond, too busy getting comfortable in the silence between her heartbeats. Slowly, his own arms embrace her torso, claw-tipped fingers digging into her skin through the thin fabric of her hoodie. There’s another few minutes that pass, and soon she looks down, beginning to get worried because he hasn’t answered her.

But what greets her is the sight of her friend slumbering softly against her.

“You silly kitty,” she says, more to herself than anything. 

And then Marinette falls asleep herself, hugging her best friend close.

The night passes by, slowly and quietly and perfectly.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Plagg has an impressive casualty count: the dinosaurs, Atlantis, etc. Fluff is a time traveler, Kaalki is a teleporter, Sass can allow do-overs. They could have saved them. Why didn’t they?

> **Prompt:** Plagg has an impressive casualty count: the dinosaurs, Atlantis, etc. Fluff is a time traveler, Kaalki is a teleporter, Sass can allow do-overs. They could have saved them. Why didn’t they?

It’s a question Adrien asks one night as he sits on his window sill, staring at the starry sky and wondering just how powerful Plagg can be. Atlantis, the dinosaurs, the Black Plague—it all stems from the creature of chaos who can’t control his own power.

“The other kwamis have powers,” he tells Plagg, eyes wide and inquisitive. But they’re different from the other holders Plagg has had—there’s no blame burning bright in that heavy gaze. “How come they didn’t do anything to help?”

Plagg simply shrugs, settling down on Adrien’s shoulder. “Because there wasn’t anything they could do. There never is. They’re not powerful enough.” 

Adrien hums in thought, tossing the words amongst his sleep-fogged mind, and instead of responding, he gently feeds his kwami a bite of cheese as he mulls over his own question.

Perhaps, he wonders, if there’s some truth in the myths and legends that haunt the world. In any kind of folklore, the beginning remains the same: creation and destruction are always the first to exist. Reality speaks the same truth as Tikki and Plagg were certainly the first kwamis, and with them came of the rest with the rise of past and future, here and there, everything else.

The other kwamis come from Plagg and Tikki, just mere parts of creation and destruction, only an iota of what is truly possible if either Plagg or Tikki were to ever unleash their full powers. A water droplet cannot hold back a raging river when its dam that breaks any more than Sass can do-over what destruction as already sentenced to death. 

“Did they at least try?” Adrien finally asks Plagg, scratching the kwami’s head behind his right ear. He has to hope that his friend has a support system because you cannot survive in a world that seeks to ruin you. 

Plagg leans into his warm touch, nuzzling his finger. “They always do.”

 _Or die trying_ , he doesn’t say. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: chat blanc, post-reveal relationship (2nd person - lowercase)

he calls you “my lady”. he always has, even before he figured out that you were marinette behind the mask. you’re so used to the space between you filled with “bugaboo” and “ladybug” and “bug”, all those nicknames you used to hate (but secretly adore) that tell you he cares. and now that he knows, perhaps “marinette” will slip from his lips occasionally. but you will always be _his lady_.

it’s just goes to show that _that’s_ what really matters between the two of you. at the end of the day, even if he’s adrien and wears chat noir’s mask, he is still your _partner_.

that’s the only thought that thrums through your mind when you hear adrien’s cry that rings through the murky paris morning. as you turn towards him from your spot on the subway steps, umbrella clenched in your white-knuckled grip, and you see the love of your life (the boy who’s heart you’ve just broken) running, quick as a bullet, towards you on the tail-end of a purple butterfly.

then in a flash of green, he’s no longer adrien agreste but the partner you’d risk your life for, chat noir in all his faux-leather and charismatic glory. you jerk from the shock of the transformation, two worlds colliding in an off-kilter way that sends you spinning out of orbit. you think, just for a moment, of the past few months you’ve spent dating adrien agreste and the last few years you’ve saved paris with chat noir. 

you think: i’ve kissed those lips a lifetime ago (the first time) when dark cupid painted black on broken hearts. you think: i’ve kissed those lips on a sunny afternoon along the seine (the first time) when adrien’s hands burned like wild fire on your hips. you think: i know him, i know this body, i know these thoughts, i know this voice, _i know this boy–_

“adrien,” you say because it’s all you can register. first he was adrien, and now he’s chat noir. the world doesn’t make sense.

and he smiles at you, green eyes sparkling and that bright grin plastered across his face, and tilts his head to the side in an ever-familiar gesture. “my lady,” he says, just like always.

there’s a beat, the span of a single heartbeat, and then you’re in his arms, clenching him tight. he drops his chin against the top of your head, cradling you close, like something precious and fragile, like you’re about to break. 

_i know this boy,_ you think _._

_adrien. chat noir. partner._

he always calls you “my lady”. that will never change.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ml au where lila has the black cat miraculous

> **Prompt** : ml au where lila has the black cat miraculous

##  **lies and trying times (chat noir!lila au)**

i.

There’s a girl in a hotel lobby sitting on a plush sofa, watching raindrops trail down the glass pane of the window. Paris storms have overtaken the seemingly quiet morning, and on her first day in the city, Lila Rossi wants nothing more than to leave the stuffy hotel room her father has booked. 

It’s supposed to be for three days, a business trip to impress a few French officials, but her father has already warned her that it might stretch out a bit. However, “a bit” in the Rossi family, is code for “three months to a year, depending on work”. He hasn’t decided whether they’re staying or leaving, which means she can’t decide whether to plan for permanence or establish an escape. The whole thing, like most other relocations throughout her entire life, is exhausting and messy. It’s the whole reason her mother decided to take a vacation to Barcelona three years ago… and hasn’t come back yet. 

Outside, the rain pours hard. Lila can only watch. 

She’s tired of waiting—for her father, for her mother, for her life to start. 

She pushes herself off the sofa, gets up on her feet, and heads towards the front entrance of the Bourgeois hotel. Outside, there’s a bustling and busy city, full of ancient history and secrets—a whimsical world she so desperately wants to throw herself into but has never had a chance. Lila rushes out onto the wet pavement, wedge heels clacking through puddles as she pushes past people. 

The rain pours. Lila leaves. 

She’s tired of waiting.

*

ii.

The story starts like this: _Lila lies_. 

It’s something she’s done in every situation. The lies are a quick and easy way to meld in with the new crowd of new people with new faces in a new place; she just wants to be liked and have friends. That’s the crux of the matter: Lila is always lonely. 

In a way, she doesn’t care if everything is built on lies because nothing in her life is permanent—not her parents, not her home, not herself. Consequences are lost on her. She does what she can to process, to fit in, but something’s different this time. 

You see, there’s something about those Paris rainstorms that leave her feeling light and new, where the rain washes away all her sins, like she has a clean slate with no problems. 

In the Paris rain, Lila is born again. 

(In the Paris rain, an evil burns with a new rage.)

In one world, a tottery old man named Master Fu finds a baker’s daughter and a famed son, giving them the tools to save the world from one man’s unquenchable dreams. In this world, he finds a lost little girl who lurks in the shadow of self-created chaos and dreams of doing better. 

_Potential_ , Master Fu thinks, _is stronger than nature._

When he falls waiting for a train, cane clattering across the cement, Lila Rossi stares for a moment before extending her hand to help him up. Rainwater drips in rivets from her tangled hair and sopping clothes, but she still has those sad eyes and soft smile. He tucks the Black Cat Miraculous into her purse as she turns to jump onto the train, walking away with a surety even in the face of risk. 

_It’s a gamble_ , he thinks, _but one who can create chaos knows how to control it_. 

The story starts like this: _Lila lies_. 

But it ends like this: _Lila can be better_.

*

iii.

The first akuma is hard and rigid, his heart a rocky range of every reason he cannot find to love 

Plagg calls him _Stoneheart_. Lila calls him _hurting_. 

In a way, a part of Lila can understand where Stoneheart’s dark feelings originated from. Her life is a constant cycle of coming and going, having and hurting, and loving and losing. The geography of her own heart is full of high mountains and wide, open oceans, barriers to block her core from complete destruction, but each day in a new place leads to more bits being chipped away and crumbling to dust. Each place she goes, every person she meets: it’s the same story over and over again 

Paris is different. It leaves her breathless and free in a way everything else has failed to do. 

It doesn’t make her life easier, but it sure does make her believe in the impossible.

“Rock monster,” she murmurs to herself, staring at the akuma as he stalks through the streets. He leaves footsteps of cracked pavement, handprints of crumbled brick on buildings, and his roar echoes like thunder through the city. “I have… to beat a rock monster with a baton.” 

“Hey,” a voice says beside her, startling her from her strategizing. “I’ve got a fucking yo-yo. I think you’re the one who’s better off here.” 

Lila whips around, coming face-to-face with glittering green eyes and a bright smile. A boy stands beside her, all red and black-spotted with a mask to match. His blonde hair is wind-tamed and tousled, as if he’s been dashing across rooftops and flying through the city too. He looks every bit the partner that Plagg told her about. 

“You must be my partner,” she says needlessly. 

“Ladybug,” he introduces and holds out his hand. “You can call me Ladybug, pretty kitty.” 

“Chat Noir.” Lila holds his hand in a strong grip and tugs him forward, until their foreheads are nearly touching. She levels him with a sharp smirk, eyes burning something fierce. “And I am so out of your league.” 

Shoulders shaking, Ladybug laughs and laughs and laughs. “Oh,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m so going to _love_ being your partner.” 

In another world, a charismatic cat falls in love with a blue-eyed wonder. In this world, the cat finds a friend. 

A little bit more of her heart crumbles to dust, leaving her more open to all that life has to bring her.

What do you know? In Paris, impossibilities are possible after all.

*

iv.

“Listen,” her father tells her, three weeks after they arrived in Paris. “Something came up.” 

Lila enrolls in school the next day. She can’t say she didn’t see it coming. 

Francis-Duponte is full of nameless faces and numerous questions, things she’d once rejoice in, but it’s her sixth school in three years, and she just wants a break. Madame Bustier introduces her to the class, and she sulks to the back row, slipping into a seat with hunched shoulders and tired eyes. Interactions are quite exhausting when nothing ever sticks. 

The day passes in slow lunges, no sudden leaps or stumbling stops. The teachers are knowledgeable, the kids are loud, and the world is a kaleidoscope of everything she can’t handle. It’s during lunch, though, that a student accosts her in the hallway. 

“You’re new, right? Lila Rossi?” A girl with bright blue eyes stands in front of her, holding a tablet against her chest. For the first time, Lila is at a loss for words. “Someone told me you were from Milan.”

“I am,” Lila acknowledges, and her mind is spinning away with lies built on threads of promise and purpose, whispering _friend friend friend_. She vehemently tries to deny it, swallowing back a lump and trying to pretend that old urges aren’t scratching at her heels. 

“I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” the girl says. She shifts her weight, gaze skittering everywhere else; she’s nervous, but Lila doesn’t know why. “Do you want to sit with me at lunch? I’m working on some designs, and I was wondering if you could tell me about some of the fashion in Milan.” 

_I have my own fashion line._

_My father owns half of the fashion industry in Milan._

_I came to Paris because I’m personal friends with Gabriel Agreste._

_I’m—_

Lila doesn’t lie. Lila _tries_. 

The question hits her in a _whoosh_ , air jumping from her lungs as if a wrecking ball had slammed into her ribcage, and she can’t catch her breath. “I…” Lila swallows again, shaking her head. “Yes, actually, I can do that. I’m probably the best person to ask actually; I know a lot about Milan fashion.” 

Marinette smiles.

*

v.

Paris at night is beautiful. 

Lila stares at the dark sky above her, which twinkles with clusters of stars and the soft glow of the pale moon, and she can’t help but think there’s something ethereal about this city. Ladybug sits above her, leaning against one of the struts of the Eiffel Tower, but he’s not staring at the view. 

He’s staring at her. 

She quirks a brow high, a smile slipping onto her face. “Distracted tonight, bug?” 

“Why won’t you tell me your name?” He crosses his arms against his chest and levels her with a quizzical stare. “We’ve been partners for over two months now. Don’t you think that _at least_ puts us on a first name basis?” 

“Colleagues.” 

Ladybug jumps down from his perch above, landing softly on his toes, and settles back on his haunches with a small, cautious smile. “I’m pretty sure we’re way past coworkers, kitten.” 

Lila can’t help the laugh that falls from her lips. “Then what the hell would we be?” 

He flashes her a quick, blinding smile—teeth and all. “Friends, obviously.” 

Lila pauses, trying to make sense of her suddenly slippery world. With a quiet sigh, she drops down and parks herself alongside him. Their thighs brush against each other as they kick their feet back and forth, falling in sync like a pendulum swinging in time with a clock. Slowly but surely, her life in Paris ticks away, seconds slipping past without her notice, and she wonders when the day will come that her father will pick up and move to another city, another country, another continent. 

It goes like this: Lila doesn’t form attachments. 

It goes like this: Lila lies to push people away. 

It goes like this: Lila is _tired_ of being lonely. 

“Friends,” she echoes. 

“Yeah.” He rolls his eyes. “Haven’t you ever had a friend before?” 

Lila toys with her fingers, needing to be doing _anything_ to take her mind off of the situation, but the words still leave her lips. “No, I haven’t actually.” Something tells her that she needs to be open and honest with him. That’s what friends do, right? 

“Oh,” he says. A quick pause and then, “I understand that feeling pretty well myself.” 

There’s silence—thick and heavy like fog before a storm—but she pushes past it and forces herself to admit the truth. “I’ve moved around a lot literally my entire life. I never really had a chance to sit down and… talk to people, I guess. I really don’t know how to have friends.” 

Ladybug bites his lip, pondering the problem for a moment before suggesting, “Well, I think you’re doing a pretty good job right now.” 

She snorts, cheeks burning hot with embarrassment. “You’re lucky I like you, Ladybug.” 

“See?” He pokes her nose with his index finger. “You’re great at this.” 

Lila can’t stop laughing. 

She really, _really_ loves Paris.

*

vi.

It’s been months and months, but if it’s one thing that Lila Rossi knows, it’s that life is only temporary. 

There’s no such thing as permanence when it comes to a home, people, or even friends. 

_What a fool I’ve been_ , she thinks.

*

vii.

“You’re a real asshole, you know that, Agreste?” Lila tells Adrien Agreste one morning after Marinette leaves the room, all stammer and stutter, muttering something about the restroom so she can try to drown herself in the sink to quench her raging embarrassment. Alya, the last of their trio, follows at her heels in effort to revive the former if needed be. 

The perky blonde with the green eyes simply blinks up at her, too taken back that Lila erupted out of the blue. It’s obvious he’s confused, but Lila is tired of watching her friend make a fool of herself over a stupid boy who won’t give her the time of day.

“Excuse me?” Adrien asks. 

“I said you’re an asshole,” she continues, crossing her arms against her chest. She leans forward, brown eyes burning with a fierce fire, her smile so sharp it could cut class. “And you’re going to start treating her better, or you’re going to have to deal with _me_.” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he tells her, and she just rolls her head. _Stupid boy, stupid boy_. “Marinette’s a good friend—”

Lila snorts. “Like you don’t see the way she looks at you, or how she can’t even speak a complete sentence the minute you walk into a room.” She flicks her wrist in his direction, poking the bridge of Adrien’s nose with her index finger. “Marinette’s my best friend, and I _will not_ let you drag her along like she’s your latest toy.” 

Adrien flounders, trying to find the right words. “I’m sorry, Lila, but I _really_ don’t know what you mean.”

His answer makes her blood boil because _how can he not see what he does to her?_ There’s an itch under her skin, because people who are too oblivious are hurt too easily, just like those who fall too fast and hard. Instead of a healthy relationship between two people, you just get a mess of pain and hurt, and there’s no hope of relief. It’s not a happy situation to get involved with. 

_How does he not know? And if he does, how can he let it go on?_

“Marinette’s in love with you,” Lila says in a rush and laughs, something bitter and hard. “And you don’t _care_.” 

There’s silence—a long pause—and then the voice that speaks is _certainly_ not Adrien. “Lila?” Marinette asks, shaky and feeble from the doorway to the classroom. 

Adrien turns to Marinette, eyes softening. “Marinette…?” 

The other girl can’t even form a coherent response—in fact, she doesn’t even try—and instead bolts out of the room before either Lila, Alya, or even Adrien can stop her. 

Something settles in Lila’s chest, like the pieces of her heart are clicking back together just to get broken again. The looming horror of the situation haunts her, a reaper coming to bring death to the tentative peace she’s carefully crafted. Ever since she came to Paris, lessons of love have been the only things she’s learned: how to love a friend, how to love a partner, how to love a city. 

This is her first lesson in heartbreak.

*

viii.

“That akuma was _my fault!_ ” Lila thunders at Ladybug, their Miraculous beeping insistently as she paces the rooftop. 

“In what way?” He turns to face her, eyes burning into her own. “You know that it’s never the akuma’s fault, so it’s certainly not yours. Hawkmoth—” 

“Because I _hurt_ her!” Chat Noir’s power thrumming through her, Lila can’t stop the hiss that falls from her lips. She grits her teeth, fists her long brown mane, keeps moving because coming to a standstill makes the world weigh heavier on her shoulders. 

“That doesn’t make this your fault,” he says. “They’re vulnerable, and Hawkmoth sends his butterflies when you’re hurt, purposely because you’re at your lowest, when you’re the most vulnerable and easily manipulated. It’s his doing, not yours, chaton.” 

“You don’t get it,” Lila interjects. “I betrayed her, and I put her in that position. Hawkmoth wouldn’t have gotten to her if I hadn’t hurt her in the first place. She’s my friend, and _I did that to her_!” 

There’s quiet, a stillness that settles over, thick and heavy. “You know Marinette then?” 

Lila snaps her gaze away from her partner, staring at her hands clasped into tight fists. Her ring is still beeping, as is Ladybug’s, but none of them seem to care at this point. “Yeah, I do.” She wonders how much she’s just given away. 

“Are you Lila then?” he asks, and _there it is_. 

Like an arrow has pierced through her heart, she grasps at the front of her chest as if to smother it’s fire, but nothing helps. Suddenly her world is crashing down around her, and the peaceful bubble she’s spent the last five months inside has burst. 

Lila’s already lost one friend today—is she about to lost another? 

“How do you…?” But she can’t voice the question quick enough as the magic gives away, and both Ladybug and Chat Noir disappear in a kaleidoscope of color. 

It’s Adrien Agreste.

“Oh.” Everything turns slippery, and she struggles to find an anchor to keep her from falling. “Oh god.” 

“Lila,” Adrien says, expression softening as he catches sight of the fear and worry lining her face. “It still wasn’t your fault. You were only trying to protect your friend.” 

“No, you still don’t get it, Agreste. I _hurt_ her.”

The name silences him, and shame washes over her like the high tide against the shore. Adrien Agreste has never been someone Lila gets along with, just for the sole way he turns her friend into a mess and continues on like it doesn’t matter. Lila knows people who string others along without a care—has done it herself for most of her life—because people are not important, and they truly don’t _matter_ to her. 

(Because she doesn’t matter to them—she never has, and never will. So many names and faces, all in different places, who promise to call or write even after she leaves, but no one has ever reached out to her after she’s gone. It’s the crux of her pain, and it makes her realize that she’s never been wanted, she’s never been first choice, and she’s never been someone worth having.) 

“We’re only human, Lila,” he tells her after a long while. The words echo through her head, louder than she wants them to be, but they still speak volumes. He’s not wrong, but he’s not right either. 

“Do you know how hard it is to tell the truth?” Lila takes a deep, shuddering breath and pushes on. “Telling the truth is like… giving a part of you to someone, and today I did that. I told you how Marinette felt, and that was a part of me—a part of her that she willingly shared—and… I took it, and I told you. She will never trust me again, won’t even look at me, and I lost one of my only friends. So don’t try to tell me you understand because you don’t get it.” 

“I’m sure Marinette will forgive you. You just have to apologize—” 

Lila shakes her head. “No, no. You still don’t get it, Adrien, and you never will. I don’t tell the truth because the truth fucking hurts. It’s _so much_ easier to lie. It’s the only thing I’m good at.” She laughs, bitter and broken. “I should’ve just kept lying.” 

Right now, with everything she cares about broken on the floor, it’s the only truth she knows: _Lila Rossi is so good at lying, it hurts._

*

ix.

It goes like this: _Lila lies_. 

It’s easy on most days, just a couple of words strung together to capture the ear of whoever’s listening, to make them linger on her voice, their eyes following hers like a lifeline. In a way, it makes them navigators as they track her across the sky, using a star to find their way. Empowered, she feels infinite, where she can be the impossible and they just pray in her wake, but it’s been a long time since she’s longed for that. 

Paris has changed her. Being Chat Noir has changed her. Friends have changed her. 

Telling the truth has changed her. 

Truth is a faith that Lila has never believed in. It’s a metamorphosis of chance: you have faith in the ones you love, you have faith in the city you protect, you have faith in your partner—but there’s no guarantee that the truth will make things better. Truth, like any form of human nature, just like the lies she used to spin, has the capability to hurt. But like the first time she donned the mask, she curls herself up into a cocoon, the truth a hard shell against the rest of the world, and waits and prays to become a butterfly. 

In the best turnout, Lila flies. In the worst possibility, she falls. 

Lila didn’t realize just how truth could be a weapon. Lies are a two-way street: one who benefits, and those who suffer if they’re stupid enough to believe it. Truth can be wielded to render someone raw and bleeding, until lies seem like the better option, to the point where they can even heal. 

Lila wishes she remembered how to lie. 

Marinette stands in the deserted hallway, arms crossed against her chest, and she refuses to meet Lila’s inquisitive eyes. “I just wanted… to talk about yesterday.” It’s like she’s steeling herself against a stronger power before she presses on. 

“What’s there to talk about?” Lila shrugs and tries to pretend like it doesn’t matter but _it does it does it does_. “You went full akuma and tried to destroy the city. It’s just a typical Tuesday.” She swallows thickly, dropped her chin to her chest. “At least Ladybug and Chat Noir were there to save you.” 

Marinette laughs, something soft and quiet. “At least there was one bright side.” 

“Obviously,” Lila says. “Chat Noir is pretty damn amazing. I know her actually, did you know that?” 

“Lila.”

“I’m also on a first name basis with Ladybug, but he’s pretty cute, you know? I could totally introduce you guys—” 

“ _Lila_.” The sound of Marinette’s voice freezes her in motion. It feels like she’s trapped in orbit and just waiting for gravity to take hold and bring her down, like a meteor due for impact. 

Lila closes her eyes and spits out a quick, “ _I’m sorry!”_

“Excuse me?” 

“It’s my fault you were akumatized. It’s my fault you and Adrien aren’t talking.” There’s a burning sensation in the corner of her eyes, and Lila desperately tries not to cry. 

“I…” Marinette presses her lips into a thin line, shaking her head. “First off, I forgive you.” 

There’s a stunned silence. “What?” Lila asks, too afraid to have her repeat it.

“I said I forgive you,” Marinette tells her. “We have a lot more to talk about, but that’s the most important thing for you to know right now.” 

The shake of Lila’s hands amplifies for she’s been shown love and doesn’t know how to handle it. It’s not something she gets from her father and her mother is more distant than the miles away from her last home. Ladyb— _Adrien_ is perhaps the closest thing she’s ever had to someone she cares for, and it’s clear now that Marinette (and perhaps some others) have gotten that close too.

“You forgive me?” 

“Come on.” Marinette grabs a hold of Lila’s shoulder and pushes her forward down the hall, out towards the courtyard where the rest of their class is taking lunch. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, and you can tell me _exactly_ how you know Ladybug and Chat Noir.” 

There’s a pause, and then, “You think I’m lying, don’t you?” 

“Please,” Marinette snorts. “You think I honestly believe that _you_ know Ladybug and Chat Noir _personally_?” 

“I do.”

“Sure.” 

The two friends go on, much like life does. 

It’s the way of the world. 

It starts like this: _Lila lies_.

But it ends like this: _Lila is better because of it_.

* 

x.

“So,” Adrien says from his perch on the edge of the rooftop, his Ladybug mask practically glowing in the afternoon sunlight. “Marinette asked me out this morning.” 

“Huh,” Lila remarks, cocking her head to the side. “You sure you heard her right?” 

Snorting back a laugh, he nudges her side with his elbow. “Please, you know I’d never—” 

“We all know you don’t have the balls to handle that girl.” She stands up and takes a couple steps back from the ledge, unclipping her baton from her waist. “Just like we all know she is the best thing to ever happen to you, and if you don’t her as such, I’m going to break you.” 

“Lila!” he snipes back, cheeks burning red. 

All she can do is laugh as she runs towards the edge of the rooftop, leaping off into open air. “Try to keep up, bugaboo!” 

“Don’t call me that!” Adrien calls after her as the two fly through the streets, past the meandering civilians and through silver sunlight that streaks through buildings and trees. 

The city sings. Lila laughs. 

She’s living.

_Oh god, is she living._


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> consider these desperada coconuts

they’re running across the cobblestone pathway, footsteps pounding in an uneasy rhythm. he can see the shadow of desperada looming over them, and perhaps it’s the fatigue of his ten thousandth jump, but bravery bubbles up within him and adrien decides to take a chance. it’s not like it’ll change anything anyway.

the words slip out like a raging rapid, too fast and furious to be held back. “you know, ladybug,” he says. “i’m actually also chat noir, and i’ve been in love with you since our eyes first met.”

there’s a few seconds between them, only the sound of pounding footsteps and pounding hearts. he watches the emotion play like a silent movie across ladybug’s face: confusion, anger, disbelief. he doesn’t know which takes hold the strongest and swiftest, but when those beautiful blue eyes narrow and flit to his bracelet, he knows she’s made some kind of connection he hasn’t even considered yet.

desperada’s shadow haunts them like a ghost, clinging to the last vestiges of his time limit. _any moment now_ , he tells himself. _trumpet, gold, ladybug, rewind._

“adrien,” ladybug says, breath catching on his name, and he decides it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. something crosses her face in that moment, and it feels achely similar to the brave that lingered within him when he blurted out his secret. a part of him wonders if he should stop her, but… like he said, it’s not like it’ll matter anyway.

but then everything comes crashing down when she continues in a rush, “chaton, i’m marinette-” 

_trumpet. gold. ladybug. rewind_.

the world comes back in a shock of color, as it has the last ten thousand and one times, and he’s left with a breathless wonder as he stares into the all-too familiar blue eyes of his partner.

“adrien?” ladyb– _no_ –marinette asks. “are you okay?”

adrien stands there, silent and lost, and tries to process as the world passes on.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> marinette and adrien are together and in love… or are they? where growing up is tough and moving on is harder. (adrinette)

soot-stained kisses

i.

There are a few things in life that Marinette Dupain-Cheng knows to be the concrete truth: that she is part of the famed superhero duo that defends Paris from evil, that she has the power of luck on her side, that she is destined to work in fashion when she’s older, that Chat Noir—her partner—is in love with her, that Adrien Agreste—her boyfriend—is not.

It doesn’t stop her from dating him though.

“I’m so glad I met you,” she tells Adrien one night as they walk through the park after a quiet dinner at their favorite Italian café.

“Me too.” He reaches down and intertwines their hands.

“I’m happy we’re together,” she says.

“Me too.” Adrien smiles at her in agreement, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

He squeezes her fingers between his own, but instead of being comforting, it just hurts.

She wishes he loved her too.

ii.

“What do you look for in a significant other?” she asks Chat Noir one night between the twin spires of Saint Ambroise Church, staring out over the Paris horizon and breathing in the cool evening air.

She hasn’t talked to Adrien all day. He hasn’t texted her either.

Sitting beside her, legs dangling over the edge of the roof, Chat Noir leans back on his hands and stares up at the night sky. “I don’t know. Someone kind, I guess?”

“Everyone’s kind,” she tells him with a smile. “…Or they have the potential to be kind.”

“Even Hawkmoth?” He quirks an eyebrow high.

“I bet he was nice once.” Chat Noir hums in agreement, seeming to mull her words with great care.

The two of them sit in silence for a few moments, just them and the city lights, with no real life or superhero responsibilities to bother them. It’s honestly one of her favorite times when it’s simply her and her partner alone with no barriers, leaving room for them to get to know each other and just be themselves. Everything is peaceful, beautiful, perfect—it’s all she wants.

“I know what you mean though,” Chat Noir suddenly says, breaking the stillness. “My girlfriend is kind.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Yeah,” he tells her and sighs.

“But?”

He presses his lips into a thin line. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s enough.”

iii.

Marinette remembers a time when Adrien’s smiles made the fire in her chest flare up.

When she first fell in love with him, they were fourteen. Back then, the most important thing to her was Adrien and how he knew her name, and each time he touched her, it felt like the world was burning. At eighteenj though, they’ve got the rest of their lives ahead of them, and suddenly other things matter more.

Before, she could picture their wedding.

Now, she can’t even picture tomorrow.

“Why do you stay with him then?” Alya asked her once.

“I don’t know,” Marinette tells her. There’s a flame in her chest that burns soft beneath her ribs, and it leaves her aching. “Because he’s kind?”

Adrien’s smiles are ephemeral. Hers are hollow.

iv.

“Do you remember when I used to be madly, horrifically in love with you?”

Chat Noir’s green eyes glitter with mirth in the soft, pale moonlight of the early spring evening. Her own lips stretch into a bright smile, giggles falling into the air between them, because of course she does. Ladybug thinks back years ago when their partnership first began and Chat Noir professed his love for her as frequently as Marinette did for Adrien.

“It’s kind of embarrassing now to think about,” he says, a dark flush dusting the tips of his ears. “I should probably apologize for that.”

“Don’t,” she tells him, and she means it.

Chat Noir being in love with her? There’s never been anything horrific about it.

v.

“Where do you see yourselves next year? In five years? Ten?”

Adrien leans over his desk and smiles. “Probably helping my father run his business.” The teacher simply laughs at his answer.

But it’s a cop-out, and Marinette and he both know it. In the years they’ve been together, she’s learned the secrets about Gabriel Agreste that Adrien desperately tries to hide. How he treats him, how he dictates, how he presses. Behind closed doors, Adrien is suffocating, and in a place where Marinette sometimes is his only means of escape, she feels like she’s drowning with him.

“And, Marinette, how about you?” the teacher asks.

She swallows a thick lump in her throat. “Right next to him, I guess?” Casting a plastic smile towards her boyfriend and teacher, she forces a laugh to bubble up. “I wanna work in fashion.”

Marinette wonders how long she must bear this—unable to breathe, standing next to Adrien.

It’s worth it, she tries to tell herself. The sky must darken before you can see the stars after all.

vi.

Chat Noir taps his baton against the brickwork of the chimney on the roof they’re sitting on.

“You only do that when you’re stressed,” she notes with a knowing smile.

Her partner simply shakes his head hurriedly. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind, bug.”

“Oh?”

“My girlfriend,” is all he offers before plopping down on the edge of the roof with a soft sigh. “I think she’s gonna break up with me soon, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“You don’t look too broken up about it,” she observes from beside him. Leaning close, she takes the baton from his fidgeting fingers and lays it in her own lap.

Chat Noir shrugs half-heartedly and lets out a chuckle. “I just don’t know what to think about more.”

“Well,” she says. “Let me ask you this: do you like being with her?”

“Of course.”

“Do you care for her?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

She licks her lips and holds his baton to her chest, the cool metal prickling her skin through the fabric of her suit. “And do you love her?”

There’s silence.

“…I don’t know.”

vii.

“When were you gonna tell me you applied to Central Saint Martins?” Adrien’s voice is tight with anger as he holds a letter in front of her. The logo for the university in London gleams on the envelope. “I thought you were looking for Paris-based schools.”

“It’s one of the best design schools in the world,” she replies numbly. The envelope looks thick—surely they wouldn’t have sent that much for a rejection? Reaching out, she plucks it from Adrien’s fingers. “I wanted to keep my options open.”

“In case what?” he says to her, and it’s only then she looks at him.

Eyes as cold as a snow-dusted mountaintop, he glares at her as if he could see through her, find the answers he needs to questions he doesn’t want to ask. But she has no words to spare to soothe his hurt heart.

“In case there was a reason to leave,” Marinette tells him.

Adrien fixes her with a heavy, knowing gaze. “A reason to leave or no reason to stay?”

viii.

It ends quick and quiet.

“I know you don’t love me anymore. I know you want to break up with me. I’m not stupid, you know.” With a tired sigh, Adrien plops down in the seat next to her and buries his face in his hands. “If you want to leave, then go. I just want the best for you—I always have.”

“No matter what happens, I’m always going to care about you,” she says because she can no longer hide the truth. “I hope you know that.”

“I care about you too.” He reaches out and squeezes her hand. “And that’s why I’m letting you go.”

There are no more words for them. Knowing this is the end of an era, Marinette leans forward and presses her lips to Adrien’s. Having spent so long suffocating in a fire, she can taste smoke on the top of her tongue.

It’s not romantic by any means. But for now, it’s enough, and that’s all that matters.

ix.

“I feel like I should be more broken-hearted.” Chat Noir hums at her words. “But I just feel… free. Is that weird?”

“Break-ups are always weird,” he tells her. “You’re always a mess of emotions. Sometimes you don’t know what to feel.” He’s unusually quiet tonight, and Ladybug cocks her head to the side, trying to gauge his thoughts.

“You speak from experience,” she notes.

“My girlfriend and I broke up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

The two sit in silence and stare up at the night sky from their vantage point at the tip top of the Eiffel Tower. Tonight, everything is clear, and she can point out constellations above them.

It’s funny because, with Adrien, she felt like a dwarf star—the tired, dying kind. At Chat Noir’s side, though, she feels like a newborn sun just beginning to shine.

She wonders if he feels it too.

x.

Months later, the night before she leaves for London, Chat Noir pulls her into a tight embrace. “I’m gonna miss you, bug.”

“Come visit me anytime, kitty,” she tells him.

He smiles, quick and easy, and it takes her breath away. She thinks about everything she’s leaving behind—her family, her friends, Adrien—but what hurts most of all is him. He’s never been the one she thought she’d miss.

“You know I love you?” he says, and a cool brushes past, more a kiss than a bite at this time of night.

“Of course,” she answers dutifully, but she can’t figure out if he’s teasing or truthful. In the end, she figures, it doesn’t really matter. What they have between them escapes definition.

How she feels for Chat Noir—that love—is something written into the very laws of nature. It’s something she knows the same way she knows how the flowers bloom in the spring, how the scent of a coming thunderstorm blows in on the breeze in the summer, how the cold embraces them in the fall, and how snow dusts cheeks in winter.

“I love you too,” she tells him, and for the first time in a long while, she breathes fresh air.

Ladybug thinks of stars and fire, of the heart that goes supernova every time she looks at her partner, of the body of bone and ash that encompasses her. She thinks of Adrien and the feeling of first love and the smoldering remains of what once was. She thinks of him and how he untied her from the pier and let her be free. 

She thinks of Chat Noir and all that they could be.

He smiles at her and a fire flares in her chest.

 _It’s nice_ , she thinks. _I like it_.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> marinette and adrien’s love story told in 25 parts (also features a linear narrative).

**LINEARITY IS OVER-RATED**

> **Summary:** How “I love you” follows the story of Marinette and Adrien over the years. A non-linear love story told in 25 parts.

“Where do you want to start?”

“At the beginning.”

* 

_As a hello_ , Marinette crawls under the covers and sticks her cold feet against the back of his knees. He squirms in response, trying to pull away, and there’s a rustle of sheets and muffled grunts. “Hi,” she tells him, all bright blue eyes and tousled black hair. “I love you.”

Adrien hits her in the face with his pillow. She simply laughs and laughs and laughs.

* 

_With a hoarse voice, under the blankets_ , he reaches across her bare waist to pull her closer, simply staring at the morning sunlight slipping through the window to wash over her soft, pale body. 

“I love you, you know that?” he says, lips pressed against the back of her neck. 

In his arms, she stirs, casting a simple smile over her shoulder. Blue eyes stare at him without the mask, and it’s all so new and beautiful and still so breathtaking. “Of course, I do,” she tells him in response. “I always have.”

*

_A scream_ that rips through the Paris sky, wind rushing past as they fall to their deaths from thousands of feet up: “If I never get the chance to tell you, I love you, Ladybug!”

Ladybug tightens her arms around her partner, squeezing her eyes shut because she doesn’t want to see what happens next.

*

_Over a cup of tea_ , Marinette watches Adrien ponder over his pastry at the little table in her parents’ bakery. “When do you feel like it’s the right time to say you love someone?” The question is something he’s been holding in for days now.

With a sigh, she thinks bitterly of Kagami, all dark eyes and rare beauty that moves with a grace Marinette never could muster. She thinks of the look on Adrien’s face when he sees her, of the soft smile that adjourns his face when her name pops up on his phone screen, the laugh that falls from his lips when he’s talking to her. 

“If you mean it,” she says, “then it’s always the right time.”

*

_Over a beer bottle_ , she’s drunk and screaming at him. “You think it doesn’t kill me when I see the way you look at her? Of course, it hurts!” Marinette throws the empty bottle onto the floor between them, glass shards bouncing across the hardwood. “I love you! I _love you!_ Of course, it _fucking_ hurts!” 

The words hold him at gunpoint, and Adrien doesn’t dare move.

*

_On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the late sunlight glowing in his hair_ , Marinette runs a hand through the golden locks and wonders if this is what angels look like. “You’re so beautiful,” she tells him softly like a whisper caught on the edge of the wind. “I love that about you.”

“The billboards must render you catatonic then,” he teases, green eyes sparkling. She squawks and tackles him in retaliation, but he ducks around her, tight and quick, so good at it because it’s a dance they’ve spent ten years learning.

*

_As a thank you_ , the words fall from his lips without a second thought. “God, I love you.”

His partner of a month quirks an eyebrow over the rim of her coffee cup. “It’s just from Starbucks,” Ladybug says, but it doesn’t matter. 

Chat Noir’s already gone.

* 

_As an apology_ , he stands in the doorway of her apartment with an intense expression, bangs flustered against his skin from the rain outside, still dripping puddles on the hardwood floor of the hallway. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to leave, I just…” He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I love you so much, Mari.” 

It’s not what she wants to hear, but it’s enough for now. With a heavy sigh, she reaches forward and grabs his wrist, tugging him back inside. “You forgot your umbrella,” she tells him, like it makes all the difference.

*

_When baking chocolate chip cookies_ , Adrien stands in a puddle of flour, trying to figure out how long to put them in the oven. From the corner of the kitchen, Marinette covers her mouth with her hand, unable to hide her giggles, because the smartest boy she knows can’t even master the basics of baking.

Her mother, Sabine, pops her head in and smiles at the sight. “So this is the one, huh?” she whispers to her daughter, quirking an eyebrow high. 

Marinette shrugs helplessly. At sixteen, she isn’t sure what she’s found, but she’s pretty sure it’s love.

*

_Not said to her_ , Adrien holds Kagami’s hand between his, intertwining their fingers in a loose grip, as they hide in the corner of the ballroom as the New Year festivities reach a crescendo. “I know we’ve been together for a long time, and I _do_ love you,” he tells her quietly, a book end to one of the best parts of twenty. “But….” 

“It’s Marinette, isn’t it?” she asks him, dark eyes heavy.

Adrien can only shrug. “I love her. I’m sorry.” 

With a sigh, Kagami gently pulls her hand from his. “It’s okay,” she says. “I think I’ve known for a long time, actually.” 

She lifts up onto her tip-toes and presses a soft kiss to the corner of his lips as a goodbye, but even as she pulls away, Adrien catches sight of Marinette sitting on the opposite of the room. She’s holding a bottle of Coors Light with a white-knuckled grip, blue eyes steely as they watch him and Kagami. When she sees Adrien staring, she pushes herself to her feet and walks away. 

“Go,” Kagami mumbles under her breath. “Go get her. It’s what you want.”

Like he does with most other things in life, Adrien follows Marinette.

*

_With a shuddering gasp_ after their first time, Chat Noir falls beside her in the darkness, trying to catch his breath. “God, you’re amazing.” 

In the darkness, she can’t see who he is or what he looks like (which was the whole point in the first place), but she wishes she could with a visceral urge that reminds her of something innate, like remembering how to breathe or how to speak.

Ladybug doesn’t know if she’s falling or if he’s already caught her, but all she knows is that she loves him.

*

_When they lay together in the fresh spring grass_ , Alya nudges Adrien’s side with her elbow and flashes them a wicked smile. “So when are you gonna tell Marinette you’re in love with her?”

Marinette glares at her from the other side of the picnic blanket as Adrien simply laughs and thinks of Ladybug instead. “Marinette?” he says, confused. “No, she’s just my best friend.” 

But as he muses over it later that night before sleep takes hold, he figures that loving Marinette wouldn’t be the worst thing in life. 

Not at all.

*

_In a letter_ , scrawled hurriedly in the margins of her latest design, are the words: _Mrs. Adrien Agreste_. A smile sprouts across his face as he catches sight of it, and a warm blush blossoms over the apples of his cheeks. 

“I love you too,” he tells her as he hands her the sketchbook. “But you know I’m taking _your_ name, right?” 

* 

_A whisper in the ear_ as Ladybug stands over Hawkmoth, sweat-tangled hair falls out of its updo, and blood-streaked hands grasp the collar of his shirt. “I loved him, and you tried to kill him.” She bears her teeth, eyes wild. “I’m going to _destroy_ you.” 

*

_Loud, so everyone can hear,_ Adrien stands on her balcony and screams out into the Paris evening air. “I am in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and I’m not afraid to say it!” 

The twenty-one-year-old has her hands wrapped around his waist, desperately trying to tug him back inside to her bedroom. “No, stop it! I hate you, you asshole! I’m still mad at you, Adrien Agreste!” 

The rain still pours, and she’s getting drenched, but the horrors of the night are simply washing away. Soon, she forgets why she was even mad at him in the first place.

*

_Over and over again, till it’s nothing but a senseless babble_ , she chatters in his ear, “I love you, I love you, I love you!” He struggles not to drop her, confusion etched across his face, because he doesn’t know what it means to come home and have his wife freak out (albeit in a pleasant, perfect sort of way).

“Are you okay?” he has to ask.

Tears glimmering in her blue eyes, she kisses him firmly on the mouth. “I’ve thought a lot about this,” she says. “And we’re going to name her Emma.”

The pregnancy test lays discarded on the bathroom counter, the pink plus sign shining for all the world to see.

*

_When the broken glass litters the floor_ , Marinette is on her hands and knees picking up the remnants of the vase and roses, unable to meet his heavy gaze. “If you have to leave, then do it.”

Adrien chews on his bottom lip, all chapped and broken, dark shadows under his eyes like never-healing bruises. It’s been that way since his father was arrested three months prior, and no matter what she does, she can’t make him whole again. She can’t make things okay.

“I love you,” he tells her, and she knows what’s coming. “But I need some _time_ , Marinette.”

“Just go,” she says again, gesturing to the front door of her apartment. Outside, it’s rain and lightning and thunder, echoing the storm brewing in her heart. “I can’t be everything, Adrien. Just go find what you need, and leave me alone.”

There’s silence that lingers, thick but fragile, until the sound of the door closing reverberates through the room.

Adrien’s gone. Marinette sits on the floor and cries.

*

_From very far away_ , Adrien’s voice sounds over the laptop. “Okay, tell Mama I love her, Emmy. Daddy has to go back to work now.”

Emma giggles in response, and there’s the _pitter-patter_ of little footsteps as she runs back to the camera. “Mama says you gotta come home soon.”

“I know, baby.” Adrien smiles softly. “I miss my girls too.”

Emma shakes her head. “ _Nooo_. You miss Hugo too, right?”

“Hugo?”

“My baby brother!” His daughter jumps up and down with unbridled excitement. “Mama’s gonna have another baby!” Suddenly though, her eyes shutter, and she leans close. “But you can’t tell Mama I told you, Daddy, because it’s supposed to be a _secret_.”

Adrien is silent for a moment, and then… “ _MARINETTE!!! COME BACK TO THE LAPTOP, RIGHT NOW._ ”

*

_With no space left between them_ , the words tumble out, easy and free, “I can’t remember the last time I told you I loved you.” Chat Noir glances at Ladybug with a puzzled expression, unsure how to proceed. “Is that weird?”

His partner sighs and settles against him, the warm Paris night bustling around them. “Probably because it means something different to you now.”

“How so?” he asks.

“Well you’re dating that girl now, right?” She shrugs and shakes her head because there’s not much else to say. “You’re in love with her now.”

“Doesn’t stop me from loving you though,” he tells her honestly, green eyes piercing. She stares at him in bewilderment, and he only laughs. “I mean… I may not be actively pursuing your heart and trying to date the hell out of you anymore, but I just want you to know that you’re still the most important person in my life.”

“…You too, Chat Noir.” Her voice is soft and smooth like glass, and just as easy to break if he wanted too. 

“Ladybug, that’s never going to change.”

*

_As they huddle together, the storm raging outside_ , fifteen-year-old Ladybug shivers against his side and bites out, “Don’t get any funny ideas, chaton.” Despite her rough words, she snuggles deeper against him as they ride out the horrid weather.

“As if you’d ever let me touch you,” he grumbles with a smile, and Ladybug can’t help the bark of laughter that falls from her lips. “But I swear you’ll fall in love with me someday, Ladybug.”

“Keep dreaming, Chat Noir.”

“Gladly.”

*

_Over her shoulder_ , she glances back and him and quirks a brow high. “I love you, but you’re being ridiculous if you think I’m getting into this school.”

Adrien groans and falls back on her bed, her university results clutched in his hand, still sealed in their respective envelopes. “Mari, when are you going to realize how awesome you are? You are singlehandedly the best person I know, so why can’t you see it yourself?”

Marinette simply smiles in response and snatches the letter from his hand, still not opening it. “Careful,” she tells him. “You don’t want Kagami to hear that.”

Adrien doesn’t know what his girlfriend has to do with things, but he pushes Marinette to open the letter from Esmond anyway.

She’s accepted. He’s not surprised.

*

_Muffled, from the other side of the door_ , his voice comes through. “Come on, Marinette, _please_ let me in. I love you.” She shudders at his words as they echo through their shared bedroom, too afraid to flip the lock and let him in. “I didn’t mean to take the shot for you, but when it’s your life at stake, I’ll do anything. You know that.”

She doesn’t answer because her heart is screaming in her chest, banging against her rib cage like a wild animal desperate to let out. Marinette doesn’t know what she would even say to him though, too caught up in that flash-second of him freefalling and getting hit by the akuma. It’s been two years since Gabriel Agreste was arrested and Adrien almost died, but the newest Hawkmoth, just as clever and chaotic as the last, has a habit of bringing back those dark times.

Adrien bangs against the door again, but Marinette still won’t open it. When his life means everything to her, she can’t speak her peace without their being some sort of repercussions.

So she lets him keep screaming, and she keeps crying, because they are both two souls willing to put their lives on the line when they mean the universe to each other.

It’s a hard hand to deal.

*

_Through a song_ , his hands dance across the piano keys. “My mom played this at her wedding,” he tells her, eyes distant and lost in a memory. “It’s one of the first songs she ever taught me.”

“It’s beautiful,” Marinette muses, just listening to the soft notes fill the air. “What’s it about?”

“It’s a love story,” he says. “It’s always a love story.”

*

_Without really meaning it_ , as the flour explodes in her face, streaks of white dusting her skin and hair, Adrien erupts into laughter. “Oh my god, you suck at baking too,” he says breathlessly, body shaking. “God, I love you.”

Marinette stills, smile frozen on her face as the weight of it crashes over her. “You love me?” she asks.

He stares at her in confusion. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

The smile on her face grows larger, and all she can think is how much she wants to hear him say it again.

*

_In a blissful sigh as she falls asleep_ , the sound reaches Chat Noir as he pauses in the doorway of the bathroom. “I love you,” comes Ladybug’s voice.

Suddenly, the bruises on his hips and the marks on his neck ache like something furious. He bites his bottom lip and tries to pretend like he didn’t hear a damn thing. They promised that the sex didn’t mean anything, so the thought of Ladybug without barriers letting that pass makes his pitiful heart jump into overdrive.

_What does it even matter if you won’t say it to my face?_ He closes his eyes and shakes his head and wonders if it’s finally time to move on.

He calls Kagami in the morning.

*

_Broken, as Ladybug clutches the sleeve of his jacket and begs him not to leave,_ the words fall from pale lips, stammered and rushed. “You can’t just end it like this.”

The winter swells around them in a swirl of blistery air, snow clutching onto the red of her suit and the curls in her hair, and she stands like an ethereal angel, but the sight just breaks his heart. “You know how I feel about you.”

“Chat Noir,” she whispers. “Please don’t go.”

“I’m always going to be your partner,” he tells her. “But I can’t be anything else.” He licks his lips in thought, trying to salvage their fracturing relationship. “There’s a girl outside the mask who’s not afraid to love me, and I could see something _real_ happening with her.”

“Please.” There’s tears now, and he’s at a loss for words.

“Ladybug…”

“Just don’t leave me. Please.”

*

_A taunt, with one eyebrow raised and a grin bubbling at his lips_ , he stands in the living room with his hands on his hips. “You think just because I love you that I’m going to your stuffy office party? That’s not how this works, my lady.”

Marinette squeals and snatches one of the pillows off the sofa and throws it at him. “I married you, you ass, it’s in our fucking wedding vows. You don’t have a choice.”

He catches the pillow effortlessly. “Look, my father dragged me to one too many of those when I was a kid. I’m _not_ sitting through that torture again.”

“You said in sickness and in health,” she reminds him with a heated glare. She skips around the couch, coming closer to Adrien. “That includes company parties where I have to listen to Chloe Bourgeois for hours and hours. You’re _stuck_ with me.”

“I will never— _OH SHIT!”_ He doesn’t catch his wife this time, as she leaps into the air and tackles him to the ground.

*

_When they’re dead_ , Paris mourns Ladybug and Chat Noir. Marinette and Adrien watch on television from their dark living room, Hugo and Emma asleep between them, with heavy hearts as the city grieves the loss of their heroes.

“Did we do the right thing?” Adrien asks her, eyes haunted with the ghosts of the last battle.

“I don’t know,” she tells him softly, voice hollow. On screen, people cry, and her own tear drips down her cheek like candlewax, thick and slow. “What I do know is that I love you, and I never want to lose you.”

Outside, it’s raining.

It’s always raining.

*

_Slowly, the words dripping from his tongue like honey_ , he spells out the truth she’s waited desperately to hear. “You are my best friend, Marinette, and my partner, Ladybug… and I love you.” He runs a hand through her hair, eyes softening as he presses his forehead against hers. “I just want to be with you.”

Outside, fireworks erupt as it strikes midnight, and Paris rings in the new year with a joyous applause. Inside, they find sanity in the spaces between their shared heartbeats, hot and heavy breathes warming pink, cool skin, as they take comfort in the feeling of _finally_ being together.

*

_Too quick, mumbled into his scarf_ , she asks him to say it again.

A light pink dusts the tips of his ears as Adrien clears his throat. “I said, ‘I love you, please marry me.’”

Flabbergasted, she can only stare at him. “But we’ve only been dating for a year.”

Instead of answering, Adrien simply shrugs, that stupid scarf falling off one shoulder with the movement. “So? We’ve basically been together since we were fifteen anyway.”

Marinette is silent, and he fingers the frayed ends of his sleeves, refusing to look at her. There’s a short pause, the span of a single heartbeat, and then she’s dragging him close by the scarf to kiss him.

*

_In awe, the first time he realizes it_ , Ladybug stands on the Eiffel Tower with a proud smile, Paris safe and the world becoming something new. Her blue eyes burn with something bright, dark hair whipping in the wind, and she’s all red and black, just like his heart as it pounds harder and harder for this girl he just met. 

“I love that girl,” he says like a promise.

*

_In a way she can’t return_ , Chat Noir leaps in front of her as Hawkmoth strides forward with his rapier, the thin metal piercing through his armor, gleaming red with his blood under the afternoon sun.

Ladybug’s eyes widen with horror as she stares up at him, too shocked to comprehend what she’s seeing. “No…” she whispers, voice cracking.

“I love you,” are the last words he manages before he collapses, broken body barely breathing. 

Ladybug’s screams echo through the city. Hawkmoth continues his rampage.

*

_On a post-it note_ , his messy handwriting adjourns the neon green paper on their fridge. Holding their sleeping daughter in her arms, she lets a soft smile stretch across her face as she reads it: _Have to jet to London for a meeting. Be back soon! Love you both <3_

“Silly daddy,” Marinette whispers to the toddler. “I was gonna tell him about your new brother today.”

*

_Before they jump_ , Chat Noir grabs her hand and yells out above the explosions as Hawkmoth continues his attack on Paris, the Eiffel Tower shuddering beneath them. “If we survive this, I’m gonna marry the hell out of you someday!”

Ladybug shakes her head. “You don’t even know my name!”

“Doesn’t matter if we’re gonna die anyway!”

She squeezes back and screams, “For what it’s worth, it’s Marinette!”

* 

_As a goodbye_ , Adrien smiles that awful broken, cracked thing. “I love you… but there’s so much that we have to deal with, and I don’t know if I can right now.” 

“I’ve loved you for years,” Marinette tells him, eyes glinting angrily form her spot on the sofa. “As Marinette, as Ladybug…”

“But there’s Kagami.” He ducks his head from view, glancing at the exit instead. “She doesn’t know yet, and with everything that just went down, I think I need a little time to… process.” 

She sighs and crosses her arms against her chest, smiling bitterly. “I can’t believe the two people I love are the same person… and I can’t have either of them.”

He doesn’t say anything to that. He just walks away. 

*

_And when she tells him_ , with that soft, sad smile, wrapped in the sheeting the first morning after. “I’m going to love you forever,” she says to him, asleep and blissfully unaware. “Just try to stop me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Linear:
> 
> So obviously Ladybug and Chat Noir are superheroes together, and Chat Noir is in love with Ladybug, but she doesn’t reciprocate. Around the same time, Marinette and Adrien are getting closer and becoming great friends.
> 
> Sometime a few years later, on the cusp of adulthood, Ladybug and Chat Noir start hooking up, in a more friends-with-benefit type of thing, and that’s when Ladybug’s feelings for Chat Noir start to blossom. At the time, Marinette is still in love with Adrien, but she’s starting to notice him pull away and have feelings for Kagami, so it’s a bit of a gradual shift. Still, she’s too afraid to say anything to either of them and decides to keep things as they are: her and Chat Noir as partners, and her and Adrien as friends.
> 
> Eventually, Adrien decides it’s time to move on because he can’t spend his life waiting for Ladybug to get her feeling sorted, and he ends up dating Kagami for a few years. He tells Ladybug that he’s dating someone, so they stop hooking up; Marinette is also the super supportive best friend role. Inside, she’s sort of realizing what a mistake she’s made because she’s let the two most important people in her life get away.
> 
> At the same time, Hawkmoth makes his final stand, and both assume they’re going to die. Chat Noir ends up swearing he’s going to marry Ladybug because what the hell, you know? He can’t hide how he feels now, and if he’s ever going to tell her, it’s now or never. At the same time, Ladybug decides to reveal her true identity without knowing his, and she tells Chat Noir her real name.
> 
> During that last battle, Chat Noir sacrifices himself for her and nearly dies. In retaliation, Ladybug faces off against Hawkmoth and ends up defeating him. Gabriel Agreste is revealed to be the supervillian and is arrested. 
> 
> Adrien reveals his true self to her, and Marinette reveals her true self to him. They both come to terms with the fact that they love each other, but with Gabriel being arrested and Kagami still in the picture, Adrien leaves to deal with that. Marinette tries to handle the fact that the two people she loves are the same person, and they’re both lost to her.
> 
> Eventually, Marinette and Adrien end up together after he breaks it off with Kagami. But it’s not a smooth transition because he’s still coming to grips with the fact that his dad tried to kill him. They work things out and eventually grow with each other and get married.
> 
> A new Hawkmoth comes out into the open and it’s just like last time, but even worse. When Adrien tries to sacrifice himself again for Ladybug, Marinette decides that they can’t keep doing this, especially with their kids in the picture. Ladybug and Chat Noir end up at a final stand again with Hawkmoth and fake their own deaths.
> 
> Marinette and Adrien continue to live as normal civilians with their family.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> marinette and chat noir decide to practice kissing, even though they’re desperately in love with other people (marichat)

Marinette’s heart can be summed up by the night atop Saint Ambroise Church, the cascade of rain slipping down the spire, and the hands pressed on her warm skin as her partner’s lips crashed against hers.

“No one’s ever kissed me like that before,” she gasps into the space between them, breath hot and heavy. Lightning cracks high above, illuminating the shine of his dark eyes and the glow of her hands tangled in his hair.

Chat Noir’s expression twists into a bright grin as he leans forward, pressing their foreheads together. “Now that’s a real tragedy,” he tells her. “Who wouldn’t want to kiss you?”

“You know who,” she says back, and she’s not sure if it’s anger or desire beginning to blur the edges of her vision. “Don’t forget it. That’s the whole reason we’re—”

With a sigh, he fixes her with a quiet gaze. “Of course, I remember.” He comes closer and brushes his nose across her cheek. “You like Adrien Agreste, and I like Ladybug.”

“And—” Marinette starts to add, but he shakes his head.

“—and right now, they don’t matter,” he interjects. “Because right now, you’re with me and I’m with you, and whether it’s to practice kissing like you say or because you’re trying to hide the fact that you’re madly in love with me, nothing else matters.”

“Of course it does.”

Chat Noir comes into her space, presses his lips to her jawline, and whispers softly, “Not to me, not right now.”

“And why’s that, kitty cat?” she taunts with a soft smile, wrapping her arms around his neck until she’s pressed up against him.

“Because right now, you’re kissing me and not him.”

“It won’t always be like that. This is just for practice.”

“So you say, Marinette.” He kisses her again, full of rain and wind, and it crashes over her like a wave on the Seine.

She sinks below the water without a second thought.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ladybug and chat noir are meant to be, at least say the red strings of fate between them.

a red string connects those who are destined to meet. 

marinette’s fucked. her red string is knotted into a mess that no one can unravel. it’s like the secrets that she surrounds herself with, just a jumble of chaos that she can barely see through most days. the lies fall from her lips as easy as her string tangles. 

myth states that the string will snag and snarl, stretch and entangle, but never break ( _ **no,** never break)._ someday it will just be a thin line between point A and point B, the distance between two people who will come to mean the world to one another, and all she has to do is follow it. but it’s nearly impossible for her. it hurts because each knot is a roadblock to finding her forever. 

so long as she has her secrets, so long as she wears her mask, so long as she’s ladybug, marinette won’t find her soulmate.

it’s a pre-determined connection, a fate only she can see, destiny laid out in front of her in the form of a red string.

it hurts, it _hurts_ , it **hurts**. 

…but her partner makes it more bearable. 

chat noir’s easy smiles smooth the snarls and unwind the whirls. his soft eyes linger on his own before he takes hers between his fingers and picks apart the tangles, helping her find her soulmate as she tries to do the same for him. his voice calms her nerves, pulls her heart back into her chest. 

there are moments when they’re seated at the top of the eiffel tower, wrapped in one another’s arms, and he cocks his head to smile down at her. “do you ever think you’ll find them?”

she shrugs against him, leans back and stares at the starlit sky above them. “i hope so.”

her gaze falls back to the ground, hundreds of feet below, and takes a deep breath. her string cascades down the side of the metal structure, disappearing into the city below, tangled amongst itself in a ball of impossible knots.

“so do i,” chat noir says back.

marinette is silent as she tracks the red string coming back up the side of the tower, ending in a little bow on her partner’s little finger. with one hand, she gives a little tug on hers. his finger moves in response.

“don’t worry,” she tells him, breathless. “i’m sure you’ll find her real soon.”

chat noir can only smile.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chat noir won’t stop suggesting marinette to ladybug as the next miraculous holder. ladybug has some concerns. features maribug and marichat.

> **prompt:** chat noir thinks marinette dupain-cheng would be an excellent candidate for a miraculous, and he keeps trying to talk her up to ladybug. poor ladybug doesn’t understand and figures that he’s either 1) playing wingman to try to hook her up with herself (fuck) or 2) has a crush on marinette (double fuck).

chat noir won’t leave her alone, pestering her over the spires of saint ambroise church after their evening patrol. he waxes poetic about a certain marinette dupain-cheng under the night sky, disordered and wild with stars and the half moon, until ladybug knows her civilian identity in a way she never has (and never wanted to) before.

“look, chaton,” she finally says, hands held up in front of her in exasperation. “i appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it’s a _no_ , okay?”

chat noir places both of his hands on her shoulders, grip tight as he shakes her vigorously. “no, ladybug, you don’t understand. marinette would be a _great_ addition to the squad.”

“we aren’t a cheer team,” she retorts, deadpan.

“we should be though,” he tells her. “‘go, go, ladybug! go, go chat noir! go, go, marinette!’ see! it sounds great. we’re great. we _could_ be better though!“

“i’m not giving your girlfriend a miraculous.” crossing her arms against her chest, ladybug huffs rather loudly and shakes her head. “just because you think her ‘eyes shine like diamonds’ and her hair ‘puts the night sky to shame’ doesn’t mean i’m gonna give her the mouse and put her in danger. that’s irresponsible.”

“no, you’re misunderstanding me!” chat noir’s voice cracks in response. “it’s not for me, it’s for _you!”_ his cheeks burn a bright pink, practically glowing under the soft silver moonlight. “i think the dynamic would be gr–”

he doesn’t get a chance to finish as her whole world turns slippery, eyes wide in horror, and her mouth drops open where stammered half-finished sentences fall out. “n-no, no, this is not happening! you can’t… i… _what_?”

“huh?” chat noir cocks his head to the side, not understanding her reaction. 

“i am not going to, or will i ever, _date_ marinette dupain-cheng!” she pokes his chest with her index finger, body trembling from the panic that thrums through it. “so stop playing wingman for her or whatever else you think you’re doing, because it’s not happening.”

“hey!” chat noir’s turn steely. “you’d be _lucky_ to date someone as wonderful as marinette! she’s a great friend with a kind heart, and just a genuinely amazing person.” 

“chat noir!” 

he turns his head to the side, brows furrowed as he thinks. “okay… maybe her voice can be a _little_ off-putting, but–”

“stop, just…” ladybug drops her head in her hands, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. “she’s not getting a miraculous, i’m not dating her, and you need to stop talking. end of conversation.”

there’s silence as chat noir takes it in, nodding softly with lips pressed in a thin line. he’s dropping the subject for now, but ladybug has an eerie feeling that the idea of “marinette and a miraculous” will come up again in the near future. with a quiet sigh, she places her hands on her hips and stares out over the city, trying to regain her bearings.

more quiet.

and then chat noir pipes up again, “you know, if you _do_ want me to wingman for you with her, you just need to ask–”

“chat noir.”

“–she’s great, really–”

“chat noir.”

“–and i know you’re nervous about her getting hurt since you like her so much, but she’s very capable, and–”

“i’m not having this conversation with you.”

“–and she likes girls too, i’m sure of it. and i won’t tell anyone about your crush, i promise–”

cheeks burning, ladybug whips out her yo-yo and throws it across the street, watching it loop around a streetlight before she leaps off into the night.

as she goes, chat noir’s voice echoes through the paris streets: “I’VE GOT HER NUMBER, LADYBUG. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS ASK!”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> marinette’s dying, and adrien’s the only one here. she has a message for him to pass on to her partner before it’s too late (warning: character death).

“No, no,” Adrien murmurs against her forehead, tightening his grip on her. “You’re gonna be fine. Help’s on its way.”

And Marinette wants to thank him, _oh how desperately_ she wants to tell him how grateful she is that he’s here, but there’s so many other things that need to be said that she doesn’t know if she has the strength to be selfish. Her hand spasms against her torso, blood-stained fingers digging into the fresh wound. Adrien’s own hand clenches hard around hers, and she struggles just to muster up a single breath.

“It’s okay, ’s okay,” Marinette tries to tell him, just to comfort him, offer him _something_ in these last painstaking moment. “I-I… It’s… You’re h-here.”

Adrien pulls her closer to him, burying her face against his neck. “Of course, I am. I’ll stay with you. Always.”

And the thought comes in like a tidal wave, crashing over her with the force of a typhoon. “Y-You hav’ tell ‘im,” she says in a rush, eyes wide. She can taste blood on the tip of her tongue. “Y-You hav’ ta tell m’ par’ner.”

“Tell who? Tell what?” Adrien leans over her, imploring her to finish her thoughts. “What’s wrong?”

“T-Tell Chat,” Marinette tries again, words turning rapid and shallow. It’s like a wrecking ball has slammed into her chest. It’s getting hard to even breathe now. “Hav’ ta tell ‘im who Hawkm’fff ‘s.”

“Wait, Marinette, wait!” Adrien’s voice is more insistent, and he shaking her now. But the world is turning slippery. “Who’s Hawkmoth? Who is he? Come on, Mari, come on, who’s _Hawkmoth?!”_

 _“He’s…”_ But the answer never comes.

Marinette’s breath stops, her skin grows cold, her eyes grow distant.

Time slips by, in great leaps and lunges, but Ladybug does not.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chat noir’s made his decision, much to ladybug’s dismay. (drabble)

chat noir decides to give his miraculous to hawkmoth because it’s for his _mother_ , and he asks ladybug to do the same but she vehemently refuses. it leads to them screaming and fighting with each other atop the rooftops of paris in the middle of the night, and after hours of trying to explain and reason with the other, they both just collapse against each other with loud breaths and quiet tears.

ladybug can’t even look at him, eyes downcast. “please don’t do this,” she whispers to him, and his grip on her arms tightens in desperation. “please don’t give up on us _, on me_. we can still beat him, chaton, i know we can.”

“but i want him to win, ladybug, i _need_ him too.” chat noir’s hands drift up to cradle her jaw, thumbs brushing the tears the drip down to kiss the apple of her cheeks. “help me, please. come on, just stay with me, and help me.” 

her forehead presses against him, hiccuping with a soft sob that tears something visceral from her chest. “ _i can’t_.” her voice breaks.

knowing that they’re about to fight on two separate sides of a war that neither has a hope of winning, her shaky fingers intertwine with his and pull his hands from her face. but she doesn’t let go, and neither does he, just trading soft pleas and sobs between themselves as the sun slowly rises to greet a heartbreaking dawn.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Adrien always knew he was in love with Ladybug. He just never thought she’d love him back

**LOST IN THE WILD**

Summary: Adrien always knew he was in love with Ladybug. He just never thought she’d love him back

i.

“There’s this boy,” she tells him on a quiet summer evening, when the moon is high and stars are bright. “I’m in love with him.”

Chat Noir has known this for quite some time, ever since she’d confessed that night on the balcony in the warm glow of candlelight, hands clenched desperately against her chest. She’d apologized to him for not returning his feelings, the same feelings that never faded, that still burn hot every time he looks at her.

He doesn’t know why she’s telling him this.

“Who is it?” he still asks, the same question he always has. Tossing it up in the middle of the night, like a coin flip for heads or tails, he wonders who has captured Ladybug’s heart.

It’s been almost a year since the night he confessed, six months since they defeated Hawkmoth, three weeks since Ladybug broached the subject of revealing their true identities to each other now that the real evil was gone.

He doesn’t expect an answer—nor does he expect anything to change.

Which is why he’s stunned when Ladybug simply turns to him and smiles, pauses, then says, “Don’t you know, Chat Noir? It’s always been you.”

ii.

He’s never wanted to broach the subject with her.

_Do you ever think you could fall for me? Do you ever think you’ll see me as anything other than a friend? Do you ever think you could love someone like me? Do you ever think you’d love me without the mask?_

Chat Noir promises himself that he’ll never ask her these questions. It’d spare him the heartache if her answer is _no_. But then again, he’s used to jumping into heartache like people jump into puddles, soaked and splashing with rain-slick skin as he dances across the pavement. Even though it’s still pouring, he keeps dancing, keeps jumping, keeps trying because the alternative is growing cold and numb, and not feeling anything at all.

So he lets the silence pass by until the moment is right, and he finally asks, “What do you mean?” But what he really asks is, _Are you in love with me?_

And, surprisingly, her answer is, “Yes.”

iii.

“Marinette,” he whispers, the name falling easy from his lips like a waterfall.

Because _of course,_ it’s her.

It’s always been her, and suddenly things click into place. It’s in the way she holds herself, the confidence and ease of someone accustomed to being authority, with the grace of a girl who grew up dancing across rooftops. It’s in her bright eyes, as blue as the sky, but flecked gray like a summer rainstorm, and in her dark hair and red ribbons. 

It’s in all those little ways, not just the big things, that make Marinette Dupain-Cheng the perfect Ladybug.

“It’s me,” she says with a soft laugh.

The warm breeze blows past, whipping her dark fringe out of her face. She glows under the starlight, skin pale in the darkness, but the night is so beautiful and so is she, and Chat Noir can’t be any happier.

Adrien can’t be happier.

“So I know you,” he says, “and you know me. That makes things easier then, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He just smiles and bows, his transformation dropping, and then he’s Adrien Agreste. He glances up at her with a sharp smirk, green eyes glittering.

“Hello, m’lady. Nice to finally meet you.”

iv.

Adrien thinks he knows what love is.

They sit under the silver moonlight on Marinette’s balcony, bundled under a red and black throw, and stare out over the city. There’s laughter in the lines around his lips, smiles that stretch wide on Marinette’s face, and words fall easy like breath into the space between them. The cool air is more of a kiss than a bite on this late evening, but Adrien still pulls her close, hands clasped together in his lap.

“We could’ve saved so much time,” he says, “If we’d confessed a lot sooner. No awkward fumbling about which of me you like better.”

“Well…” Marinette’s cheeks are dusted pink, and it’s not from the cold. “How was I supposed to know? It’s not my fault you’re so good at keeping secrets.”

They sit in silence, finding comfort between the silence of one another’s heartbeats, until Adrien finally leans close.

Hot breath tickles her ear. “So what made you decide Chat Noir was better than Adrien anyway?”

Marinette lets out a squawk of surprise and hits him across the chest. Adrien doesn’t mind, though.

He keeps on laughing.

v.

“There’s this boy,” she says, “I’m in love with him.”

“Who is it?” he asks.

Of all her answers, he’d never once thought it’d be him.

And then it was.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ORIGINS (ROLE REVERSAL AU)

i.

When Marinette is eleven, her mother goes missing.

There’s a major media presence that sweeps across the country as a result, local police and government officials coming out in droves to help locate the prolific Sabine Dupain-Cheng. As one half of the famous fashion designing duo, the Dupain-Cheng’s, her case elicits a strong following.

When Adrien is eleven, his mother goes missing.

No one comments on the baker’s wife. There are more important things to worry about.

*

ii.

At fifteen, Marinette is one of the most sought after girls in Paris. With a famous fashion designer as a father, and a model for many of his latest pieces, there’s not a soul in the city that hasn’t heard of her. Most might think she has the perfect life—full of fame and money—but they don’t know what it’s like to be a lonely, little girl with a mourning father living in a huge house with no one else to turn to.

Marinette spends her days with her father’s assistant, Theo, and her tutors, and in her free time, she stitches designs of her own, staring out the window of the mansion, which is becoming more like a prison with each passing day than the home her parents had raised her in.

(She tries not to think about the time _before_ everything changed. When public school was a part of her present, her friends were numerous, and her mother was still there. It was a time when she was happy, and now, she doesn’t know what to feel.)

At fifteen, Adrien comes to school with flour streaks on his cheeks and frosting-stained fingers fumbling for his chair. Tardy again due to his father’s late morning, he prays for the day his father will wake up, drop the bottle, and go on living. (It’s been four years though, and he thinks it’s time to give up hope.)

His life goes like this: wake up, bake while his father puts himself together, go to school, close up, and go to sleep. So long as habit and routine dictate his life, nothing new will ever happen, and for Adrien, that’s the biggest shame of all. He wants change, he wants his father back, he wants his mother.

(He tries not to think of the time _before_ when everything was perfect. When togetherness and laughter were the building blocks of the bakery, when his father didn’t spend most of his time in the attic, and his mother was still here. It was a time when he was happy, and now, he just feels hopeless.)

*

iii.

Wayzz senses the evil before it strikes, and Master Fu is on a mission.

His search leads him to the quiet corner of a bustling Paris street and to a young boy who’s rushing off to his first day of school. One heart-stopping moment later, there’s a car, a rescue, and a thank-you as the boy rushes off to class. Even if he needs an act of kindness to prove it, Master Fu made his decision long ago.

“He’s looks like his mother,” Wayzz tells him.

Master Fu only nods.

It’s fitting, he decides, that the past holder of the Peacock Miraculous, the guardian of protection and watchfulness, had a son with a heart big enough and kind enough to handle the Miraculous of chaos.

Perhaps Adrien Agreste was always meant to be the Black Cat.

(If he senses the strong evil presence above the bakery, he chooses to ignore it. Destiny works in mysterious ways, as he learned long ago.)

Marinette has always been quick on her feet.

She leaves through her window, slips down the tangled branches of the old maple tree near her bedroom, and climbs over the black iron gate that borders her property. It takes approximately fifteen minutes, and it’s long before Tom Dupain-Cheng notices his only daughter’s absence.

She almost makes it too, standing at the steps of the public school, where her friends eagerly await her arrival, if it isn’t for the old man who collapses at the end of the street. The way Marinette sees it, there’s not really a decision at all. She bolts to the man without a second thought, offering a hand and a smile.

“Are you alright?” she asks, even as she hears Theo pull up alongside the curb.

The old man stares at her with a twinkle in his eye. “I’m fine,” he says, “And thank you.”

With a hand on her shoulder, Theo leads her away, already dialing Tom’s number, even with Marinette’s breathless plea of, “Please don’t tell Papa.” Her father only wants the best, she knows, and she’s seen the tired look in his eyes, the heavy bags he carries around, the hunched shoulders and quiet voice. He doesn’t want to lose her too, but he doesn’t understand that the more he locks her away, the more she slowly withers away, until he finally _does_ lose the daughter he’s trying so desperately to protect.

“Her father seems a bit protective,” Wayzz remarks.

Master Fu nods. “They’ve always been a close family. I think it was her mother’s influence. Bees tend to look after their hive quite closely, you know.”

“Do you really think she’s the best choice then?”

Master Fu looks at the worn box in his hand and smiles to himself, knowing that perhaps all Marinette Dupain-Cheng needs is a little luck in her life.

*

iv.

“Nooroo, dark wings rise!”

 _For Adrien, for his mother_ , Gabriel Agreste tells himself. _We’ve suffered enough. It’s time for others to have a taste._

The first akuma slips out of the skylight and flies over the Paris streets.

*

v.

The first day of school is quite eventful.

Ivan turns into rock giant, Nino runs after him with the new girl, Alya, on his heels, and Adrien is at a loss of how to proceed. His classmate turning into a monster is not part of his carefully crafted routine, so he heads home as it’s the only option.

Marinette watches from her bedroom, tear tracks still drying from her father’s soft _I just want you to be safe_ the moment she returned home.

“The police can’t stop it,” the news anchor is saying, and she wishes there was something she could do.

Both look down at the worn boxes in front of them, curiosity spiking. There’s flashes of light, and kwamis appear, and a few seconds of shock are allowed. They leap into action as easily as they fall in love, easy to get into but hard to give up. (They still can’t get over their mothers, even though it’s been four years.)

Clad in a red and black-spotted suit, Marinette zips through the city with a smile on her face, glad she can finally do something. With his black leather armor, Adrien slips out the back door of the bakery, following the shadows to the arena as something finally sparks in his chest, like he’s finally got something to fight for.

Neither know what they’re doing, and it shows in the way they fight, but at the end of the day, they have each other.

“Call me Chat Noir,” he says, making stupid puns and oozing charisma, and after a while, his laughter doesn’t sound as hollow.

“I guess that makes me Ladybug,” she tells him, forcing a smile onto her face, and after a while, it finally feels real.

(It’s the first time in a long while neither feel alone.)

*

vi.

“I just want you to be safe and happy,” Tom tells her later that night once the akuma has settled.

“I know,” Marinette says, voice thick with tears, and slips into his open arms, squeezing her father tightly. “But I’m not happy here.”

So Marinette finally gets to go to public school where her old friend, Chloe, begrudgingly offers her a soft _hello_ (Marinette is sure that Chloe still hasn’t forever her for leaving in the first place) and meets a new friend named Alya, whose eyes are fire and whose smile hangs the sun.

“We’re both new,” Alya says, “We need to stick together, girl.”

“That sounds great,” Marinette tells her, just happy to be with a friend.

Alya grips her hand and points across the classroom. “I can introduce you to Nino later. He’s really cool, and he loves superheroes like me. Now that Paris has its own Ladybug and Chat Noir, I think me and him are going to start up a blog together.”

At this point, Marinette is only half listening as she locks eyes with the boy she used to know (quite, _quite_ well), offering him a tentative wave when he glances her way, and he returns it with a soft smile.

( _Some things_ , she tells herself, _you just don’t give up_.)

When she catches sight of the boy next to him, with tousled blonde hair and bright green eyes, she nudges Alya with her elbow. ‘Who’s that?” she asks, pointing to the other kid.

“Oh?” Alya cocks her head. “That’s Adrien Agreste. I just met him yesterday, but he seems pretty quiet. Nino’s like… his only friend, I guess.”

Suddenly Adrien raises his gaze, meets her eyes, and she waves to him and mouths a silent _hello._ He prompts ignores her, turning back to his tablet instead. Inside, a bubble of frustration pops in Marinette’s chest, and she whips around to the board.

( _Some things_ , she tells herself, _aren’t worth fighting for._ )

Adrien is buried in his tablet as Nino nudges his side, a concerned expression on his face. “Dude, what’s with the new girl? You not like her or something?”

Biting his bottom lips, Adrien can only shrug. “I guess I’m just not in the mood to meet new people.”

(And he isn’t, he _really_ isn’t. When the people you love leave you, it’s hard to put yourself out there and find people who want to stay. Nino, frankly, is the only one who’s ever tried, and Adrien’s afraid to try again.)

“Well don’t be an asshole about it, dude,” Nino tells him.

“I wasn’t being an—”

Nino cuts him off. “Yes, you kinda were.”

 _Oh no_ , Adrien thinks to himself.

*

vii.

The akuma is back, and Marinette feels like she’s failed.

Chat Noir puts his hands on her shoulders and whispers the right words in her ear because he never wants anyone to feel as hopeless as he always does. “You can do this,” he says, “Even if no one believes you can, I do. Okay, so just _trust me_ , Ladybug.”

Marinette can only think of her father, who keeps trying, of her missing mother, who everyone has given up on, and of Adrien Agreste, who won’t give anyone a chance. “Okay,” she tells him, “I will.”

( _Chat Noir_ , she decides, _is worth fighting for.)_

Soon the akuma is defeated, and Marinette is almost sad. She doesn’t want to leave her new partner, but she carries with her the promise that she’ll see him again soon.

*

viii.

Adrien watches Ladybug cast her Miraculous Cure and can’t help but smile. “I knew you could do it, bugaboo.”

“Don’t call me that.” She slugs him on the arm, but there’s a warm smile on her face. “Maybe I should start calling you _chaton_.”

Adrien throws his head back and laughs, body shaking. “You know, I could get used to that!”

“No, n-no, this isn’t how this works,” Marinette sputters, eyes wide.

But Adrien keeps laughing until his cheeks hurt, his shoulders ache, and his heart feels like it’s grown two sizes.

He can’t remember the last time he was so happy.

*

ix.

It’s raining when her first day of school ends.

She holds a hand up to the stormy sky, water droplets dripping from her cold fingers, and lets out a sigh. Theo isn’t the most responsible person her father has ever hired, but at this point, he’s family and you don’t let family go. So as she debates whether to call Theo up and remind him to pick her up or make a run for it, she leans against the brick entrance of the school, jumping when she hears the front door opening.

Turning on her heels, she goes to flash the person a warm smile, freezing when she catches sight of Adrien Agreste. Ducking her head instead, she turns back to the rain and hopes that the storm will wash him away and that he’ll leave soon.

But he doesn’t leave.

He shifts his weight slightly, a black umbrella at his side. “So,” he announces suddenly, flashing her a soft smile. “It’s been brought to my attention that I was kind of an asshole this morning.”

Marinette snorts, turning her gaze to her shoes. There’s a short moment of silence between them, the span of a single heartbeat, and then Adrien is handing his umbrella to her.

“An apology,” he offers.

Marinette scans the streets, looking for a car that wasn’t there, looking at the streets that are drenched in the downpour. “You need it, don’t you?” she questions, brows furrowed in confusion.

“I owe you though.”

They stare at one another, blue eyes and green locked, and for a moment, time stands still. “Why are you being so nice to me?” Marinette finally finds the courage to ask. “Alya said you… Well, I thought you didn’t… like… _people_.”

Sighing to himself, Adrien can only shrug helplessly. “I don’t make a lot of friends. It’s not that easy for me.”

Marinette nods in understanding. “Trust me, I know the feeling.”

“Well,” Adrien pauses, unsure of how to continue. But then he presses the umbrella into her hands, the warmth of his skin lighting a buzz against hers, and her breath catches in her throat. “Maybe I can be yours. I mean, I’d… like to. I’d like to be your friend, Marinette, if you’ll give me a second chance.”

And there she is, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the girl who’s always been lonely finally making a friend. And there he is, Adrien Agreste, the boy who’s always given up finally taking a chance. The two are silent for a few more seconds, but then Marinette takes the umbrella and walks down the stairs.

She pauses midway, turning on her heel and flashing Adrien a small smile. “You know, if you want to apologize, you could walk me home. That way none of us have to get wet.”

Adrien only nods, returning her warm smile. “O-Of course, yeah, let’s do that.”

(Both of their hearts pound a little bit harder in their chests.)

*

x.

“Excellent choice, Master,” Wayzz tells the old man, who watches the two walk away under a black umbrella.

Master Fu can only laugh. “Those two are made for each other.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> marinette wonders why chat noir keeps coming around.

**CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT [MARICHAT]**

Black against the dark night, eyes shining like the moon, he stares at her like she’s his North Star and can lead him home. Chat Noir has always treated her as such, and even when she asks him why, he never gives her an honest answer, just that she’s important, that she matters. As much as she wants to believe in the glimpses she catches of the glances he steals, there’s something that stops her. 

Like clockwork, he comes every night, sometimes at the peak of twilight while others after patrol when she has to hustle home to beat him. He slips onto her balcony, through the skylight and onto her bed, whether she’s in it or not, and spends long hours beside her as they work their way through physics homework, her sketches and designs, and two-player videogames. It’s been going on for months before she finally says something because, in the same way that he’s her partner in superheroing, he’s become her partner in everything else. It’s confusing and frustrating, because he looks at her like she’s his as well, but it doesn’t make sense.

Ladybug is Chat Noir’s partner. Marinette is not.

“Why do you come over here all the time?” she asks him once, voice inquiring but not demanding. She’s on her side, head cradled in her hand, as they lounge on her bed staring up at the starry night through her skylight, buried under warm blankets with the low murmur of each other’s voices to pass the time.

Chat Noir bites his bottom lip, expression thoughtful. “Do you… not want me to anymore?” He cocks his head slightly, blonde hair falling over the bridge of his nose. 

“No, of course not,” she assures him and flashes him a warm smile because she doesn’t want him to think he should leave or stop. Truthfully, she’s grown used to his presence, and she doesn’t know if she can go back to long, lonely nights by herself.

“Then what’s the matter?” he asks instead, and he still won’t give her an answer to her own question.

“I was just wondering…” The end of her sentence trails off because she’s afraid to voice the _don’t you have someone waiting for you?_ He comes by so often, knowing that she’s awake and waiting for him, but there must be days he goes home, sees other people as well, because she can’t be the only one (even though she wishes desperately that she is). 

“You’re the only girl I’d wanna spend my nights with, Marinette,” he says to her, and the words are so open and honest, that her heart bangs pitifully against her ribcage.

“Good.” She lays down in her bed, head next to Chat Noir’s on the pillow, and can only stare at the him in wonderment. With shaky fingers, she brushes his bangs away from his face and tells him, “I’m glad.” 

She still doesn’t know, still doesn’t know what they are.

Call it what you want, she wagers, at least he’s here and they’re together.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chloe has a fear of people leaving. she wonders if marinette will share their same fate. (chlonette, drabble)

If Chloe Bourgeois should ever admit to a greatest fear, it’s the moment when one hand is on the door, one foot over the threshold, and not a single glance back as they walk away. It’s the dread that bubbles in the pit of her stomach when she finally finds someone she wants to keep and now must sit through it all and wait as they approach the fork in the road: go left into her arms or turn right into someone else’s. It’s the fear that haunts her every waking moment, a living nightmare she can’t escape, lingering to her cob-webbed thoughts like smoke to a fire.

She pulls Marinette closer to her chest, sweat-tangled curls strewn out across their shared pillow, and hopes. The other girl stirs in her sleep and murmurs nothings under her breath, and Chloe can only hold her own. It’s the hour when the chill in the air is more of a kiss than a bite, goose-pimpled skin burning hot against her touch as Chloe strokes her arm with a forefinger and a thumb, like Marinette is the most precious thing in the world to her.

Chloe holds her tight. She holds her breath. She holds onto hope.

People have a tendency to leave her, and she prays that this time, her fear won’t come true, and Marinette will be the one who stays.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> adrien waits to be the one ladybug comes home too. (ladrien)

During the late evenings, Adrien waits.

It doesn’t matter if he has an off night or if they’re together. After long nights of patrols, he still slips into his bedroom and hides his mask and kwami, having left his partner on some vacant rooftop a few miles back as soon as goodbye fell from her lips. Getting home before she arrives is part of the game he plays, tempting fate with every silver-tipped lie that rolls off his tongue and every façade he wears like the mask he hides behind. He knows it’s only a matter of time before she finds out the truth, but for now, he pretends because it’s all he can do. For now, she’s here, they’re together, and he’s happy.

(He can’t remember the last time he was happy.)

Ladybug climbs through the window with a shy smile and bright eyes, expression soft and so full of love that it makes his heart throb in his chest. The soft twilight shadow has already been burned away by the cool night sky, the moon hanging high over the horizon, but it still casts her faint shadow over the floorboards, startling him from his hushed conversation with Plagg.

“You’re here,” he says, voice low, and he tells himself it’s because he needs to be quiet, but really it’s because he doesn’t want to scare her away.

“You waited,” she replies, cocking her head to the side, like she’s surprised too.

Blue eyes peer at him through the inky darkness, and he can’t help but stare right back—both too afraid to make a move. They’re like twin suns locked in a binary star system, lost in orbit and never destined to touch, but always in each other’s light. Finally, Ladybug slips off the window sill, landing on his wooden floor, and the reverberations of her footsteps bounce off white walls and echo through his head.

 _She’s here, she’s here, she’s here_ , his heart beats against his ribcage.

Even though it’s been three months since they first started meeting, spending long late nights together after patrols, much to his partner’s ignorance, Adrien still feels the same rush of warmth flooding his cheeks the closer she comes, until she’s a hair’s breadth away and it takes one last tug to pull her into his arms.

“I missed you,” she murmurs into the crook of his neck, hot breath tickling his wind-blistered skin, and he swallows down everything he wants to tell her—the truth, his name, the secret. Dreaming of telling her is tempting fate because this is a game he’s fine playing but not worth taking a gamble with.

He only smiles over her to an empty room that’s as hollow as his heart. “Missed you too,” he says, voice rough and frail, like one breeze will blow it away and it’ll all be for nothing. “Thought you’d be coming sooner.”

“I had to finish patrol.” She tightens her arms around his waist even as she pulls away, looking up at him with a bright smile, full of the warmth of a sun he’s forgotten. “But I’m here now.”

She’s trying to reassure him because she thinks he stayed up till the early morning hours to wait for her, the only time they have together when the world isn’t looking and nothing else matters. A part of him feels slightly guilty that he’s tricking her, but right now, he has no other options. All Adrien knows is that he loves her, and she loves him, and the whole thing is beautiful the same way autumn is as everything slowly dies.

He tries to pretend that everything is okay.

“I love you,” he tells her because it’s what he wants to say and thinks she wants to hear. Her answering blush is more than enough proof. “I know you’ve got your superhero duties, I understand.”

Because of course he does, of course he understands. How could he not? He’s her partner in every way that matters. But she is Ladybug, headstrong and charismatic, a fire burning hot every single second of every single day, and only wants to protect him. As Chat Noir, he never learns much beyond her charm and confidence, only the tidbits she shares as throwaway comments during patrols, and in the year they’ve been partners, it’s not enough. However, as Adrien Agreste, he learns so much more once she learns she can be open with him, and her mask begins to slip little by little.

He learns so much about her, how much she loves fashion and hates physics homework. She tells him about the time she taught herself how to sew when she was five, how mastering skills was done on her own time, and how she tended to lean towards independence before she even considers relying on others. She tells him how difficult it is to be Ladybug, to hide herself from her partner, and how much Chat Noir actually means to her.

He wonders if he should be jealous of himself because Adrien is learning all the things that Chat Noir never can. But he also knows that Adrien exists in a spot in her life that Chat Noir isn’t privy too, and that’s okay. She’s Ladybug, she’s his partner, she’s his _everything_. He’ll be whatever she needs him to be.

So he takes her into his arms again, presses his lips against hers in a short, sweet kiss, and tries not to think about anything else. All that matters right now is the way her lips feel against his, tasting of strawberries and cinnamon, and the warmth of her face in his hands as he brushes the pads of his thumbs over the apples of her cheeks. She breathes, hot and heavy, against him as he deepens the kiss, and buries everything he can into it. It’s full of everything and nothing at the same time, the desperate desire to rid of his troubles and fears, and she lets him.

“I love you,” she says into the same kiss.

He accepts it and pulls her closer. Someday, she’ll know he’s Adrien and Chat Noir, and things will work out because they’re meant to. In the meantime, however, he’ll keep playing this game. Waiting for some people is worth it, he knows, so he’ll wait for her.

After all, she still needs someone to come home to after a long night—no matter who he is or what mask he wears.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> five stages of falling in love  
> chloe and marinette through the years. drabble. (chlonette)

i. _Meeting._

When Chloe meets Marinette, it’s with the ferocity of a dragon spitting fire, the heat and sharp teeth slaughtering the thin ribbons of a new connection. There’s nothing left but ashes. However, the deepest burns leave the most striking scars, shiny and new, enough marks to prove that, for a moment, they came together. They may not know it yet, but eventually they will come to matter to each other. Like with everything, the wounds heal and scars fade. It just takes time.

ii. _Learning._

They’re thrust together again. Bound, not by choice, but by duty, being on the same side of the war changes things. Marinette is not Chloe’s friend, and sometimes they’re barely even acquaintances; however, they are allies, and when the world needs them, they do what they must. Instead of a dragon’s fire, it’s an ocean wave, with all the rage of the typhoon and soothing relief of arctic waters. At the end of the day, there’s bruises, bloody fists, and aching hearts, but it’s just enough to remind them that they’re still alive. Sitting on the curb in the middle of a rain-soaked Paris, the rest of their team around them, they smile at one another for the first time.

iii. _Loving._

For a friendship to start, there needs to be a common like and a stable foundation. Marinette and Chloe don’t believe in any of that. They skip the friendship and dive straight into a relationship because when a connection, once broken, is fixed, there’s truly no time to waste. They fall into bed as easily as they fall in love, bright and blazing as they burn a path of destruction in their wake. There are many things they should do—talk about their future, their identities, their friends—but, honestly, they could care less. Right now, all that matters is that there is a them, they are together, and they are happy.

iv. _Losing._

Pretending they never mattered is the hardest part of leaving. Without Marinette in her life, Chloe must relearn what it means to be alone, but try as she might, Marinette lingers in her memories like smoke to a fire. When she closes her eyes, it’s to Marinette’s touch on her skin, blazing like dim coals, in her dreams even when she is gone. In the end, it isn’t anyone’s fault in particular. Maybe in another time, in another universe, they might have worked out. Perhaps they weren’t meant to be in this one. Chloe hopes she’s wrong.

v. _Staying._

When they come back together, it’s different. They aren’t like fire and water this time, instead a suffocating fog that Chloe chokes down until it rests at the bottom of her lungs, pressed down by breath and Marinette, forever a part of her. In the years apart and in the years they learned to be with each other, they’ve changed, each growing in ways they needed until they fit together like pieces of a puzzle. From enemies to allies, from strangers to loves, Marinette and Chloe will always come back together.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chloe falls in love with the rise and setting of the sun. drabble. (chlonette)

Chloe wore a yellow sundress the first time Marinette fell in love with her.

It reminded her of sunshine and daffodils, and happiness buzzed like bumblebees in her stomach the longer she stared at the other girl. Chloe’s hair was streaked with golden light, laughter as bright as her smile, with blue eyes like the sky, so bold and beautiful. She sat on the edge of the balcony, where the wind whipped her long curls back and stole the words from her very lips. Every time they tried to speak to one another, they dissolved into breathless laughter, and Marinette couldn’t help but love her.

It was funny. Even though she never set out to fall in love with Chloe Bourgeois, fate had a funny way of making things happen.

“Got any plans today?” Chloe asked her as she shifted back onto her hands, cocking her head and fixing Marinette with a soft smile.

Marinette stared at Chloe for a long while, torn between brushing the bangs out of her eyes and kissing her. She closed her eyes, the image of Chloe surrounded by a sunlit halo burned into the back of her lids, and sighed.

“Nothing,” she told her girlfriend. “Just gonna spend the day with you. That okay?”

“Sounds good to me.” Chloe’s voice was light and airy like her laughter. “But you’re still helping me with my physics homework.”

Marinette could smile. “Of course,” she said, and silence settled over them.

Sunshine and happiness, a ladybug and a bee, and the thrill of being alive and in love.

Life didn’t get much better than this.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “what’s your favorite food?” marinette asks her one day, and chloe can only think of the fruit-stained lips she last kissed. drabble. (chlonette)

“What’s your favorite food?” Marinette asked Chloe one day, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets and pressed against her chest.

Chloe etched words into her cool skin, writing a book of the beauty she saw that morning—dark waves painted with the night sky and eyes flecked grey like a summer rainstorm—and tried to remember. She traced the veins in Marinette’s wrists, following them up her arm, neck, and to her lips—lips she remembered stained with strawberry jam the first time they kissed.

At the cusp of eighteen, she’d fallen in love with a blue-eyed superhero whose lips tasted like strawberry jam from the pastries in her parents’ bakery, which Marinette smuggled up onto her balcony on late summer evenings when the moon was high and the city was quiet. They would French braid and laugh, and sometimes Marinette would sketch and Chloe would take pictures of the breathtaking sights before them.

Chloe remembered that night in great detail. The fluttering butterflies in her stomach from a mistimed confession and the shaky hands pushed up under her chin as Marinette coaxed her forward, lips pressing together in soft brushes and deep strokes, like the kiss was a Da Vinci masterpiece. She could taste strawberries on the tip of her tongue and smell the sticky sweetness from Marinette’s fingers stroking the apples of her cheeks. Later, she’d return home and find streaks of powdered sugar in her hair and on her neck, ghosts of Marinette’s touch that proved it wasn’t a dream, that the kiss had happened, and that Marinette loved her too.

“What’s your favorite food?” Marinette asked her two years later in the corner of their apartment, buried under a mound of blankets with the hustle and bustle of the late Paris evening echoing like a lullaby outside.

Chloe could only look down at her, all glittering eyes and soft smile, and brush away her bangs with a finger. “Strawberries,” she told her in whisper, full of love and happiness. “I love strawberries.”


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How can you love me if I don't love who I am? (chlonette)

“How can you love me if I don’t love who I am?” Marinette wraps her arms around herself, minute trembles overtaking her body. Her blue eyes have a glossy sheen, but she’s no where close to crying. It’s more like the weight of all her fears and insecurities are piling against the dam, and splinters are showing like cracking glass. 

She’s close to breaking, but Chloe knows her girlfriend has always been strong. There’s no reason for her to crumble. 

Chloe can’t stop herself from reaching forward and tucking Marinette’s bangs behind her hair before smiling softly in response. “Do you really think I’d fall in love with someone who _wasn’t_ worth my time?”

“That has nothing–”

“Don’t be stupid, Dupain-Cheng.” She curls her fingers around Marinette’s jaw in a sweet caress. “You have so many reasons to love yourself, and I’m going to take my time listing _every single one_ out.”

Marinette’s words are lost in the sudden kiss.

Chloe simply smiles. She has some work to do.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> self insert snippet of a fandom of ur choosing, where you live in a certain fandom’s world (ie. ML!paris)

_Paris isn’t all bad_ , I like to tell myself as I sweep the sidewalk in front of my shop. It’s a quaint and cozy neighborhood, and inheriting the business from my uncle seemed like the perfect life decision when I made it three months ago. 

“It’ll be a peaceful place to settle,” I told my parents before I packed my bags and moved here. Of course, that was before I knew about the akumas and Hawkmoth and now some floofy-ass peacock that likes to haunt the shadows of the alleyway around the corner. 

But, like I said, Paris isn’t all bad, even with the villains that run rampant. The cuisine is wonderful, the people even better, and I’ve built a steady following in the short time I’ve taken over.

Hell, it’d be perfect if it wasn’t for…

And right on cue, there’s a pounding of footsteps as Ladybug and Chat Noir land on the roof of my shop, rolling head over heels as they pop up and leap for the next building. There’s a short beat of silence and then a cascade of shingles and loose bricks fall from the roof and onto my clean sidewalk.

“Fucking superheros,” I say and pick up my broom again.


End file.
